Businesses face increasing pressure from governments, regulators, and the general public to reduce their impact on the environment. To enable businesses and their stakeholders to accurately measure the impact of operations, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) frameworks have emerged. As the name suggests, these tools measure the environmental and social impact of an organization’s operations and evaluate how the governance processes and policies help to achieve the organizational goals.
Measuring ESG is manually difficult, and this is where automated tools with AI-driven insights have emerged. These tools capture data from relevant sources and analyze it to identify gaps and provide recommendations to address these gaps. One such tool is Salesforce Net Zero Cloud.
In this article, we will do an in-depth review of Salesforce Net Zero Cloud to help you decide if this tool is the right fit for your operations.
What is Salesforce Net Zero Cloud?
Salesforce Net Zero Cloud is a sustainability software that helps organizations measure and manage all their ESG initiatives in a single platform. It also generates the reports required for complying with different ESG frameworks and standards.
At its core, this platform provides a 360-degree view of an organization’s ESG activities to identify gaps and improve performance. It supports a data-driven decision-making process for reducing the carbon footprint. Built on the Salesforce Lightning platform, it also integrates seamlessly with other Salesforce tools.
Net Zero Cloud works well for all organizations across different industries, like energy, transportation, and manufacturing, where carbon emissions are significantly higher.
Key Features
Net Zero Cloud is a comprehensive tool, as it comes with many features that support an organization’s ESG initiatives. Below are the important features of this tool.
Centralized ESG Data Management
One of the highlights of this tool is that it acts as a single source of truth for all data related to ESG. Specifically, it collects and organizes all the data related to carbon emissions, water usage, energy efficiency, and waste generation from a wide range of sources, like a company’s operations, travel data, supply chains, and more.
When all this data is collated into a single platform, it becomes easier to track emissions of all three scopes. For reference, scope 1 refers to direct emissions, scope 2 is indirect emissions from purchased energy, and scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions, including those from supply chains. By collecting data for all three scopes, Net Zero Cloud makes it easy to identify where the organization is lacking. Besides scopes, it also groups data based on specific geographical areas.
Source: Salesforce
Carbon Footprint Forecasting
Carbon footprint is one of the key benchmarks in calculating the environmental impact, and this tool analyzes historical data and current trends to accurately forecast your carbon footprint. Specifically, it uses Tableau’s analytics to create predictive models and what-if analysis to identify the areas that contribute to your carbon footprint, so you can take measures to reduce them. More importantly, it helps create science-based targets that align with global standards like the Paris Agreement.
Source: Salesforce
Generative AI Capabilities
Net Zero Cloud leverages Salesforce Einstein AI for critical tasks like carbon accounting, emissions tracking, and calculating building energy intensity. Given the difficulty and complexity of ESG reporting, using Einstein AI takes some pressure off ESG employees. It helps in the following areas.
- Authoring reports for different ESG frameworks.
- Auto-populating responses.
- Collating and disclosing more relevant information.
- Identifying more data points for better decisions.
- Materiality assessment.
Supplier Emissions Tracking
Scope 3 emissions, especially those from supply chains and third-party vendors, account for more than 70% of a company’s carbon footprint. At the same time, companies have little control over these aspects and rely on external vendors to efficiently manage the associated emissions.
Net Zero Cloud 2.0 comes with a scope 3 emissions dashboard that shows the carbon footprint of every vendor across different areas. Also, it allows businesses to collaborate with vendors through Slack to better understand their emissions and work with them to reduce these emissions.
Source: Salesforce
Net Zero Marketplace
This is an innovative feature that allows organizations to buy carbon credits directly through the platform. These credits are validated by third parties and are aimed at removing the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through different initiatives like planting trees. The marketplace also offers project bundles, which make it easier for organizations to offset their carbon emissions.
Advanced Reporting
Generating reports that meet the different ESG standards is another core feature of every ESG platform, and Net Zero Cloud excels in this area. Its flexible and customizable templates allow organizations to generate reports that meet the SG standards they want to comply with. As there is no universal reporting framework, organizations can use these templates to meet existing and emerging standards. Also, this tool integrates with Tableau for investor-grade visualizations.
Thus, these are the prominent features of Net Zero Cloud. Next, let’s analyze its strengths and limitations.
Strengths of Net Zero Cloud
Net Zero Cloud is a powerful and scalable solution that’s well-suited for enterprises and SMBs that are already using a Salesforce ecosystem. It also works well for those looking to invest in a comprehensive ESG solution, as it has the following strengths.
- Multiple Scopes – its ability to handle scope 1,2, and 3 emissions makes it a versatile tool for all organizations, including those with a complex carbon footprint.
- Scalable – You can use this tool for just carbon accounting or to cover every aspect of ESG compliance and reporting. It can also scale well to meet your growing requirements.
- Audit-ready – It generates enterprise-grade audit-ready data. In particular, its AI capabilities help fill data gaps and pre-populate global emissions.
- User-friendly interface – It comes with an intuitive interface that enables you to quickly find the information you need.
- Salesforce ecosystem – Integrates well with other tools in the Salesforce ecosystem.
Limitations on Net Zero Cloud
Like any tool, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud also comes with limitations. You must understand these shortcomings while evaluating this tool’s fit for your ESG needs.
- Complex – Though it comes with an intuitive user interface, Net Zero Cloud can be overwhelming for new users, especially those who are not familiar with the Salesforce ecosystem.
- Non-environmental ESG – While Net Zero Cloud is seen as a comprehensive ESG solution, the focus is more on the environmental side, and less developed on the social and governance aspects.
- Dependency on Salesforce – It makes sense to use this tool only if you already have a Salesforce ecosystem. Otherwise, it can be hard to justify the additional costs and complexity.
- Pricing – Lastly, this tool is expensive, especially for small organizations.
Now that you know the strengths and limitations, you can make an informed decision on how much value it can add to your operations.
Pricing
There are two plans – Starter and Growth.
The Starter plan is priced at $48,000/year and comes with three full CRM licenses. It offers features like consolidation of environmental data, automated data gap filling, a business travel module, and dashboard and analytics.
The Growth plan is priced at $210,000/year and offers all the features. It comes with five full CRM licenses.
Real-world Applications
Many companies across various industries are using Salesforce Net Zero Cloud for their carbon accounting and environmental tracking. Some prominent companies are:
Mastercard
Mastercard uses Net Zero Cloud to manage its Scope 3 emissions. In particular, it obtained detailed information about one of its vendors and worked with that company to bring down emissions and take more meaningful climate action.
Deloitte, Germany
Deloitte was facing scrutiny in Germany for the transparency of its carbon footprint. It signed up with Salesforce to accurately track its emissions, so it could provide a detailed report for all its stakeholders. This level of transparency also became a competitive advantage for Deloitte.
Final Verdict
So, what do we think of Salesforce Net Zero Cloud?
Overall, Net Zero Cloud is a convenient tool for organizations that want to reduce their carbon footprint and make their operations more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Its advanced features support the operations of large enterprises with complex supply chains, as it can cover scope 1,2, and 3 emissions. Other aspects like its integration with Salesforce’s ecosystem, AI-driven automation, and reporting make it a leader in carbon accounting.
However, its high price and dependency on the Salesforce infrastructure are limitations.
For companies already using Salesforce or those prioritizing carbon accounting and ESG reporting, Net Zero Cloud is a worthwhile investment.