As global sustainability progress becomes more urgent, organizations need tangible, transformative solutions to help them move forward faster. Most have not progressed as much as they would like. While 85% of managers say that sustainability is strategically important to their business, only 16% have integrated sustainability into their business strategies.
Today we introduce new data and AI Solutions in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability that provide the capabilities organizations need to progress on their sustainability journey. These include faster analytics and insights into environmental, social and governance (ESG) data, an AI assistant to help accelerate impactful decision-making and reporting, and other advanced features, all designed to help organizations get things done faster.
Microsoft Fabric: a unique analytics platform for sustainability data
In May 2023, we unveiled Microsoft Fabric, an end-to-end analytics SaaS platform that brings together all of an organization’s business data, including ESG data that the company may not have previously had access to. access previously. With Microsoft Fabric, your teams can connect to data from anywhere, discover insights using AI-driven analytics tools in a unified experience, and integrate those insights into the apps your people use daily to drive action and improve decision-making.
Now in preview, Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric enables organizations to accelerate their time to sustainability insights and progress by providing a ready-to-use ESG data model, connectors and reports. By connecting your ESG data to Microsoft Fabric, you can transform volumes of sustainability data into meaningful insights and progress.
Co-pilot and intelligent information: AI assistance for better and faster decisions
With centrally managed data and Co-pilot in Microsoft Sustainability Manager, now in preview, organizations can use powerful generative AI and natural language queries to get faster sightlines and responses from data. Organizations can ask Copilot questions, and Copilot will work within Microsoft Sustainability Manager to:
- Quickly analyze environmental data and area reduction opportunities in areas such as carbon and water consumption, saving labor and time.
- Talk to sustainability data: ask questions and quickly get answers.
- Write sustainability preparatory reports, thereby reducing time and freeing up resources to focus on other priorities.
With intelligent insights in Microsoft Sustainability Manager, also in preview, organizations benefit from an integrated and interactive AI model allowing deeper analysis of calculated emissions data. Thanks to it, they can:
- Find out where their data needs to be cleaned or where more complete data is needed.
- Analyze organizational data to identify short- and long-term reduction opportunities.
- Refine decisions based on historical trends, seasonality, and data anomalies.
Södra, Sweden’s largest forest owners’ association with 52,000 owners of responsibly managed forests, transforms sustainable raw materials from its members’ forests into renewable products. Using Microsoft Sustainability Manager with new AI capabilities, Södra has improved its sustainability practices, such as reporting through automated feeds that make it easier for employees to collect detailed information.
“Thanks to the AI capabilities of Microsoft Sustainability Manager, we can be more productive, which is our ultimate goal,” shares Cristian Brolin, Chief Digital Officer at Södra. “We found the Copilot feature very easy to use and my vision and ambition is that it will help accelerate the way we work. We are excited to see how this solution helps accelerate our sustainability progress.
ESG Value Chain Solution: Work with Suppliers to Drive Reductions
For most organizations, supplier activities can account for more than 80-90% of their carbon footprint. Mastering this data is essential to meeting reduction targets and reporting requirements.
ESG Value Chain Solution in Microsoft Sustainability Manager, now available to everyone, allows organizations to simplify data collection and provides a transparent and more secure process for suppliers. Organizations can run advanced analytics on ESG value chain data in one place and find opportunities to reduce emissions within their value chain.
At Microsoft, our procurement team discovered that bringing together data from reports, spreadsheets, and siled systems into a single data set and sharing learnings with others is essential to advancing our own progress as well as that of others. Through more automated data collection and management, for example through an ESG value chain solution, we can not only share data more easily, but also respond more effectively to changing regulatory requirements.
Leading a sustainable business towards new growth opportunities
According to a study by the United Nations and Accenture, 98% of CEOs view sustainability as an essential part of their role, and two in three are forming partnerships and taking action towards sustainability. Many also translate these actions into new business models and growth.
Allegiant Stadiumhome of the Las Vegas Raiders, uses Microsoft Sustainability Manager to support a state-of-the-art, energy-efficient facility that hosted the 2024 Super Bowl. Allegiant achieved LEED Gold certification, is powered by 100% renewable energy sourced from local solar farms and uses Microsoft solutions to help organize data to inform decisions on resource use.
Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability is designed to be extensible by partners, including experts operating at the intersections of sustainability and AI. For example, Avanade’s Co-Pilot for ESG removes the friction of regulatory compliance reporting, generating audit-ready reports against new and existing ESG frameworks.
We are proud to have a growing global business ecosystem sustainability solutions, advisory and implementation partners working closely with us, to build and deploy capabilities that can address the broad, multifaceted and complex sustainability challenges.
At the intersection of sustainability and AI, the opportunities are vast for any organization to refocus their activities on transforming operations, reinventing brands and exploring new business opportunities. Microsoft AI harnesses this potential and meets the needs of our customers with a responsible approach to AI this relies on robust assessment, verification and validation.
Thanks to the power of data and AI, progress in sustainability is not only possible, but tangible. Organizations can gain efficiency and accuracy in decision-making and reporting, as well as new ways of doing and growing their businesses, on a shared and exciting path to a transformative future.
