Harnessing Data to Drive Sustainability
One of the topics on everyone’s minds is sustainability. There are many public initiatives focused on it, and it’s gained a lot of popularity over the past several years. In a recent conversation with Avrohom Gottheil, CEO of AskTheCEO Media, Gina Kirby, Senior Sustainability Specialist for the Americas at Microsoft, highlighted the company’s data-driven approach to sustainability. By leveraging data and insights, Microsoft aims to make a significant impact in reducing its carbon footprint, conserving water, minimizing waste, and protecting biodiversity.
Importance of Establishing Baselines:
One of the key challenges enterprises face when pursuing sustainability goals is gathering and analyzing the vast amounts of data necessary to establish baselines. These baselines are essential for understanding the current state of a company’s environmental impact and setting goals for improvement. As Gina points out, data is often scattered across various sources, including digital records, IoT devices, and human capital, making it difficult to gain a clear understanding of the overall situation.
“Some of the key challenges are that the information that it takes to create baselines, set goals, and understand things like an ROI and where to invest or mitigate — those are, unfortunately, not all in one spot. It sits in a variety of different systems. And sometimes some of those systems are, in fact, human capital, right in people’s minds and understandings of knowing their own business very closely. And so, some of it is already recorded and written down. Some of it is also in knowledge. In addition, as we continue to see the need for improvements and specifically Scope 3 insights, this will require dramatic improvements in the shared transparency of information across value chains. And so, combining all of those things becomes the initial challenge before companies are trying to step forth on their path to progress.”
Microsoft’s Approach to Sustainability:
To overcome these challenges, Microsoft evaluates its environmental impact across four key areas: carbon, water, waste, and biodiversity. The company assesses its performance in each area by gathering data from its various divisions, such as cloud services. By leveraging this information, Microsoft makes informed, data-driven decisions to invest in improvements and reduce its environmental footprint.
In addition to monitoring its performance internally, Microsoft releases an annual sustainability report to showcase its commitment to transparency and continuous improvement. The report details the company’s progress in various areas and highlights both its successes and challenges on the path to greater sustainability.
Case Studies and Collaborations:
Microsoft’s data-driven approach to sustainability goes beyond its internal operations. The company works with customers across various industries, such as Grupo Bimbo, BBC, Ingredion, and FLSmidth, to help them leverage the Cloud for Sustainability platform. This platform aids companies in gaining deeper insights into their environmental impact and devising strategies for improvement.
Microsoft also acknowledges the importance of collaboration in achieving sustainability goals. By working with a diverse partner ecosystem, the company ensures that it can draw upon the expertise of various organizations to supplement and enhance its sustainability initiatives.
Get Started Today:
Some parting words of wisdom that Gina shared are the importance of getting started on your sustainability journey. “I think the parting words of wisdom would really just be, we are at such a critical moment in environmental sustainability, and it’s so important that we are moving from assessments into action. And so, if you do nothing else, get started today. We firmly believe there is a critical role for data to play at the intersection of technology and sustainability, and that means whether your company has set forth pledges and goals or not, improving data quality, data hygiene, and data transparency will set you up on the path to making progress on your journey.”
Learn more about Microsoft’s Cloud for Sustainability: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sustainability/cloud
Watch the full conversation here: https://youtu.be/Nj-XMDjSxD0
Listen to this conversation on Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/S5ChJ
About the Author
Avrohom Gottheil is the founder of #AskTheCEO Media, where he helps global brands get heard over the noise on social media by presenting their corporate message using language people understand.
Avrohom presents his clients as Thought Leaders, which challenges his audience to reimagine their own mission and vision, delivering actionable insights, and leaving them passionate, motivated, and with the necessary tools to take immediate action.
Avrohom comes from a 20+ year career in IT and Telecom, where he helped businesses around the world install and maintain their communication systems and contact centers. He is a Top-ranked global expert in IoT, AI, Cloud, and Cybersecurity, followed worldwide on Twitter, and a frequent speaker on leveraging technology to accelerate revenue growth.
Listen to him share the latest technology trends, tools, and best practices for IoT, AI, Cloud, Cybersecurity, and more on the #AskTheCEO podcast — voted as the #1 Channel Friendly Podcast 2019 by Forrester.
Contact Avrohom:
Web: https://asktheceo.biz
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