Microsoft as sustainability buyer zero: Managing Scope 3 emissions

At the moment’s organizations are at a crossroads. Confronted with rising strain to satisfy sustainability expectations from clients and stakeholders together with rising reporting necessities, enterprise leaders are more and more recognizing the necessity to rework versus merely carrying on with “enterprise as regular.”

At Microsoft, we see this shift as a constructive growth for our planet’s future.

For our personal half, we’ve taken a scientific strategy to embedding environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues into our enterprise for years, and we’re now working to allow different organizations to do the identical. Not solely will we use our personal knowledge options to assist us measure progress towards our environmental sustainability targets, however we’re partaking with our price chain suppliers to assist additional cut back our emissions.

The fact is that our firm can not attain our bold carbon destructive targets with out the assistance of our price chain companions and suppliers. We estimate that 75% or extra of our whole carbon footprint comes from Scope 3 emissions, outlined as emissions that aren’t produced by the corporate itself, that not directly accrue up and down the worth chain from different organizations as they do enterprise with us. A large quantity of our whole carbon footprint comes from Scope 3 emissions, which is why our Scope 3 dedication is our strongest alternative to assist speed up international decarbonization efforts by partaking suppliers and clients in our price chain and partnering to cut back emissions related to the enterprise we do collectively.  

On this second a part of our Buyer Zero weblog collection, we share a number of the challenges and successes we’ve confronted on this effort—from how we’ve used expertise to advance our Scope 3 progress to how we’ve engaged with our suppliers to drive their very own accountability and progress.

Microsoft Sustainability Supervisor

Flip environmental knowledge insights into motion

Microsoft Oblique Procurement spearheads new ESG worth chain resolution

The Microsoft Procurement group manages hundreds of oblique (services-based) suppliers globally. After asserting our carbon destructive ambition in 2020, we examined our Scope 3 emissions and added language to our Provider Code of Conduct requiring an annual carbon emissions disclosure. Since then, we’ve partnered with our suppliers to teach them on carbon accounting, enhance the standard of knowledge, and drive emission discount progress for providers delivered to Microsoft.

Figuring out the place our largest Scope 3 discount alternatives exist—and learn how to take motion—requires entry to granular emissions knowledge. When contemplating learn how to acquire extra detailed knowledge from suppliers, it rapidly grew to become clear that present merchandise had been unable to satisfy our wants. The most important situation was that our earlier platform didn’t permit us to customise the questions we requested suppliers.

As a substitute of making an attempt to make a third-party resolution match our wants, Microsoft Procurement partnered with engineering groups inside Microsoft to develop “built-for-purpose” options. High of thoughts for Microsoft Procurement was a easy device that was extra collaborative, featured versatile reporting, and would higher help suppliers.

This collaborative workforce labored collectively so as to add new capabilities inside Microsoft Sustainability Supervisor, together with:

• A streamlined emissions survey course of wherein questions may be personalized for suppliers, giving the procurement workforce the flexibleness so as to add, take away, or alter questions as rules and methodologies evolve.
• Self-service options already constructed into Sustainability Supervisor that allow suppliers to simply edit their emissions knowledge in real-time, view their buyer particular compliance standing (together with causes for non-compliance), and resolve non-compliance points to enhance the standard of emissions knowledge. 
• Low-code growth and residential web page customization, which signifies that Microsoft Procurement can simply create a provider touchdown web page particular to its program, together with a central web page for provider assets, help, and an summary of provider sustainability necessities.
• A connection to Energy BI, the place sustainability choices and program progress are measured by turning our provider emissions knowledge into visible insights and analytics, refreshed in actual time as provider emissions knowledge is up to date, past the out-of-the-box experiences that Sustainability Supervisor helps.

These progressive applied sciences are actually out there to our clients within the new ESG worth chain resolution in Sustainability Supervisor, now in preview. Suppliers that participated in the Microsoft Procurement sustainability program had been early testers of the ESG worth chain resolution, the place their suggestions helped affect this early model.

PureRed, a Microsoft provider, offered early testing of the potential earlier than being launched throughout Microsoft’s provider inhabitants.

“We had been thrilled to take part within the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability pilot program, permitting us to have interaction in efficient methods to trace and cut back environmental impression. This platform is lighter to handle, with concise questions and fewer modules than different business references, making the disclosure course of extra intuitive. As a worldwide distant firm, we challenged ourselves to completely perceive our GhG [greenhouse gases] emissions and Microsoft was a improbable associate to streamline and validate our outcomes.”

—Natalia Sánchez Herrera, managing sustainability at PureRed

Outcomes and classes realized

Microsoft’s journey in direction of attaining our bold Scope 3 carbon emissions discount objectives has been a studying expertise and can solely proceed to evolve as rules are up to date and methodologies change.

On this course of, we’re as soon as once more reminded of the significance of managing knowledge. Microsoft is aligning with the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability knowledge mannequin. Utilizing knowledge collected and reworked inside Sustainability Supervisor, Microsoft has prolonged our personal resolution to additional analyze provider sustainability data. Consequently, Microsoft Procurement can acquire and analyze provider emission data to glean priceless insights associated to outliers, tendencies, and correlations. As well as, reporting and objective alignment enhancements being made in Sustainability Supervisor will assist procurement groups acquire all 15 carbon scopes for emissions, water, and waste knowledge.

No matter success we’ve achieved is because of embedding sustainability into our tradition. The Procurement workforce had early entry to progressive options and the flexibility to affect product growth. All that is enabled by a company tradition that fashions management and empowers individuals to make the modifications they want. Our sustainability journey is an ongoing course of, and we’re excited to be creating progressive expertise options for our suppliers and clients that can proceed to evolve.

Be taught extra about sustainability options with Microsoft