Microsoft and Partners Are Building a More Sustainable Future

By Nick Parker - Corporate Vice President, Global Partner Solutions

As we observe Earth Day 2022, we know that protecting the planet is critical, and we are committed to creating a more sustainable future. For Microsoft, sustainability isn’t just an ambition — it’s part of our culture. Our commitments and actions on sustainability are far-reaching and are some of the most ambitious out there. Our goal isn’t just to become more sustainable though, we want to help every organization on the planet to do the same. Organizations around the world need to transition to a net zero, environmentally sustainable future in a short period of time, and our partners are leveraging the Microsoft cloud, Cloud for Sustainability, data and AI to build innovative applications, solutions and services to help customers transform their operations, products, services and supply chains, to facilitate their transition to net zero, and achieve their sustainability goals.

Optimizing technology for a more resilient future

Our partners offer a variety of Microsoft cloud solutions that empower customers to understand, minimize and manage environmental impact, gain operational efficiencies and achieve more responsible supply chain practices:

  • The Awesense Digital Energy Platform is a data model-based framework that energy providers and solution builders can use to scale at the same pace as the rapidly growing energy grid, unlocking and combining energy and geospatial data to enable analytics and visualizations.
  • The CadDo Calculate solution helps financial organizations augment financial performance with rigorous, investment-grade SDG metrics to inform investment decisions for improved sustainability.
  • Earth Knowledge’s Foresight Platform is providing institutions with forward-looking planetary intelligence that helps companies mitigate future risk and guides investment decisions, bringing clarity to the economic risk of climate change and biodiversity loss.
  • Honeywell Forge Predictive Maintenance is a cloud based solution that collects data from building assets and uses machine learning to understand how equipment is running against optimal performance in order to achieve better building performance and realize operating efficiencies.
  • ICONICS Water Management solution provide insights to ensure water treatment and filtration happens exactly as planned. Customer benefits include energy and labor savings, leak detection, pollution reduction, government compliance and sustainability improvements.
  • SAS worked with Wienerberger AG to develop and deploy a process optimization solution that uses analytics to reduce energy consumption and emissions in the production of bricks. It utilizes a data-based model to compensate for the large fluctuations that occur during the processing of raw materials used to create bricks.
  • Uptake provides asset-intensive companies with the traceable, secure, cost-effective ability to connect their machines, people and data together to embrace their fiduciary duty and act in service of global sustainability.

Solutions from systems integrator and advisory partners enable business transformation

Our systems integrator and advisory partners are working with companies around the world, applying their deep industry expertise to deliver Microsoft Cloud-powered sustainability solutions and innovative services that help customers drive operational efficiencies, enable business transformation and achieve their sustainability goals:

  • Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft are driving joint sustainability efforts including their pioneering role in the Green Software Foundation, a nonprofit that’s building a trusted ecosystem of people, standards, tooling and practices to enable green software development. And, through Project Amplify, Accenture and Microsoft support dozens of startups that focus on driving social impact and sustainability by providing access to emerging technology and expertise to help them scale their solutions.
  • Cognizant believes that technology can help businesses make informed decisions about ESG, lead the transition to lower carbon and build a more inclusive economy that will positively impact the environment. Cognizant and Microsoft collaborated to develop industry-leading solutions  on the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability including Connected Factory by APEX and OneFacility.
  • EY is driving innovation with Microsoft in order to support clients with challenging ESG (Environmental, social and governance) issues including energy transition and decarbonization, stakeholder and risk management, ESG ratings management, regulatory compliance and external reporting. EY’s Microsoft Cloud solutions such as ESG IQ and the Decarbonization Platform, are focused on helping clients solve the new business challenges that ESG presents.
  • Corey Glickman, VP Sustainability & Design at Infosys, and Jeff Kavanaugh, head of the Infosys Knowledge Institute, wrote “Infosys – The Practical Sustainability Book” to provide organizations with a practical approach to creating and connecting smart buildings and spaces that deliver proven results and can be replicated by others including global enterprises, small companies or government entities.
  • Kyndryl believes that it is mission critical to be a leader who is providing climate change solutions, and they are working with employees, customers and partners to transform our world to net zero. For Kyndryl , the #heart of progress is to build a more sustainable world for today, and for future generations.
  • New PwC solutions for smart stadiums utilize digital twins, IoT sensors and AI to promote a more modern, more rewarding experience for everyone entering a stadium or sports facility. These solutions provide a safer, healthier environment for both customers and staff by removing barriers and helping people get where they need to go faster, and behind the scenes, facility managers can realize reduce costs through centralized core functions, smarter resource planning and predictive analytics to monitor, predict and manage equipment status, waste removal and climate control.
  • TCS Clever Energy is an enterprise energy and emission management system that helps commercial and industrial organizations be more sustainable, ensures energy and cost efficiencies, decrease carbon emissions, and achieve their carbon neutral goals. The solution accelerates customers’ journey towards neutrality by reducing energy and CO2 consumption by up to 15%, and typically produces a ROI within a year. Over the next five years, TCS expects that the Clever Energy solution will save the company and its customers more than $200 million dollars, and up to 170 tons of CO2 emissions.

Working together to accelerate progress toward a more sustainable world

It will take all of us working together to drive the changes needed to ensure the future of the planet.

The first step is to understand impact, and the Emissions Impact Dashboard can help measure emissions related to Microsoft cloud services. Purchasing partner or Microsoft devices built with sustainability in mind can help people begin to reduce their environmental impact, and Microsoft Sustainable Partners can help organizations measure, model and manage their global operations at scale.

No matter where an organization is in the sustainability journey, our partners’ devices, solutions, and services can help organizations minimize environmental impact, deliver new value, accelerate business transformation and achieve sustainability goals. One company with ambitious commitments, together with an entire ecosystem of partners with ambitious goals, will make a difference around the world!