Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability - Simply Explained
Welcome to another episode of Knowledge Nuggets with Mirko Peters. Today we're exploring Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, Microsoft's end-to-end platform for measuring, managing, and reducing an organization's environmental impact. Most organizations want to become more sustainable, but very few can accurately answer a simple question: What is our actual carbon footprint? The challenge isn't a lack of commitment—it's a lack of connected data. Electricity bills, fuel consumption, supplier reports, travel expenses, and waste management records all exist in different systems, managed by different departments, often using completely different formats. Before companies can reduce emissions, they first need to understand them. Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability was built to solve exactly this challenge. Rather than acting as a simple carbon calculator, it creates a unified sustainability platform that collects data, calculates emissions, supports compliance reporting, and helps organizations make better environmental decisions. In this episode, we'll explore how the platform works, its three major building blocks, and why businesses around the world are adopting it to improve both sustainability and operational efficiency.
THE CHALLENGE OF SUSTAINABILITY DATA
Before understanding the platform, it's important to understand the problem it solves. Imagine a company asked to report its annual carbon footprint. That seemingly straightforward request immediately requires data from electricity providers, fleet management systems, business travel records, procurement databases, manufacturing facilities, waste disposal companies, and suppliers. Unfortunately, none of those systems naturally work together. One department submits PDF utility bills, another exports Excel spreadsheets, procurement provides CSV files, while HR stores travel information inside an entirely different application. Even the measurement units differ, requiring organizations to manually convert kilowatt-hours, gallons, liters, therms, and countless other units before meaningful analysis can begin. At the same time, regulations such as the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) increasingly require accurate environmental reporting, making reliable sustainability data a regulatory requirement rather than a voluntary initiative. Instead of spending valuable time improving sustainability, many organizations spend months simply collecting information. Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability was created to eliminate that inefficiency.
WHAT IS MICROSOFT CLOUD FOR SUSTAINABILITY?
Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability is not a single application. It is a connected platform built on Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365 that provides organizations with one centralized location for sustainability management. A useful analogy is to imagine sustainability data scattered across dozens of filing cabinets throughout an organization. Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability gathers all those documents, standardizes the information, translates different formats into one consistent data model, and presents everything through a unified dashboard. The platform follows three primary objectives. First, it records sustainability information from across the business. Second, it reports environmental impact using recognized global standards. Finally, it helps organizations reduce emissions by identifying opportunities for improvement through analytics and AI. Although carbon reporting remains the primary use case for many organizations, Microsoft has expanded the platform to include water consumption, waste management, and broader Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting as well.
BUILDING BLOCK ONE: COLLECTING THE DATA
Everything begins with gathering reliable sustainability data. Microsoft provides multiple approaches depending on an organization's level of maturity. Smaller organizations often begin with structured Excel templates that allow users to upload electricity usage, fuel consumption, water usage, or waste data using standardized formats. Larger organizations frequently automate data collection through Power Query, which connects directly to enterprise systems using dozens of available connectors. Instead of manually exporting spreadsheets every month, sustainability data flows automatically into the platform according to scheduled refreshes. Microsoft also supports partner connectors for organizations already working with specialized ESG providers, while built-in manual data collection portals allow employees and facility managers to submit information that isn't available through automated systems. Regardless of the source, every dataset ultimately flows into the same standardized sustainability data model, ensuring consistent reporting and eliminating many of the formatting problems that traditionally complicate sustainability reporting.
BUILDING BLOCK TWO: CALCULATING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Raw activity data alone doesn't measure sustainability. Electricity consumption, vehicle mileage, fuel usage, and business travel only become meaningful after they are converted into greenhouse gas emissions. Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability performs these calculations automatically using internationally recognized emissions factor libraries provided by organizations such as the EPA and the International Energy Agency. The platform calculates emissions across the three internationally recognized greenhouse gas categories. Scope 1 covers direct emissions generated by assets the organization owns or controls, such as company vehicles or manufacturing equipment. Scope 2 measures indirect emissions resulting from purchased electricity, heating, or cooling. Scope 3 extends much further by including emissions throughout the wider value chain, including suppliers, transportation, purchased goods, employee travel, and product disposal. Because Scope 3 often represents the largest portion of an organization's environmental footprint, Microsoft includes supplier portals that simplify collecting sustainability information directly from external partners while automatically applying appropriate emissions calculations behind the scenes.
BUILDING BLOCK THREE: TURNING DATA INTO ACTION
Once emissions have been calculated, the platform focuses on helping organizations improve. Interactive dashboards provide near real-time visibility into carbon emissions, water usage, waste generation, and sustainability performance across facilities, business units, or geographic regions. Artificial intelligence continuously analyzes incoming information, highlighting unusual increases in emissions or unexpected changes in resource consumption that might otherwise remain unnoticed. One particularly valuable capability is what-if analysis. Organizations can simulate future decisions before making real-world investments. They can estimate how switching vehicle fleets to electric cars, selecting different suppliers, or adopting renewable energy sources would influence future emissions. Goal tracking and scorecards further allow organizations to measure progress toward long-term sustainability objectives while keeping leadership informed through executive dashboards. Microsoft has also introduced capabilities that connect sustainability information with financial metrics, helping executives understand not only environmental impact but also the financial consequences of sustainability decisions.
SIMPLIFYING COMPLIANCE REPORTING
Reporting is often the most time-consuming aspect of sustainability management. Organizations must frequently prepare reports for multiple regulatory frameworks, each using different structures and disclosure requirements. Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability includes built-in reporting templates supporting major international frameworks including CSRD, GRI, IFRS S1, IFRS S2, SASB, and several additional standards. Rather than manually mapping every data point to different regulatory requirements, the platform performs much of this work automatically. Organizations can even calculate emissions using multiple methodologies simultaneously while maintaining complete audit trails that allow every reported figure to be traced back to its original source. Copilot further simplifies reporting by generating draft disclosures, summarizing sustainability performance, and answering natural-language questions about environmental data. Instead of spending months preparing annual reports, sustainability teams can focus more of their time on improving environmental performance itself.
REAL-WORLD RESULTS
Several organizations have already demonstrated the business value of Microsoft's sustainability platform. Emirates NBD reduced sustainability reporting time from approximately three months to only one week while significantly improving visibility into emissions data. This improved insight also supported major sustainability investments that substantially reduced carbon emissions. Brazilian payments company Elo consolidated dozens of disconnected databases into one platform, reducing manual work by more than forty percent while saving hundreds of working hours annually and lowering consulting costs. Mitsubishi Electric used the platform to optimize smart building operations, while World Wide Technology significantly reduced the time required to perform emissions calculations across its organization. Across these examples, the biggest benefit wasn't simply regulatory compliance—it was gaining reliable visibility that allowed organizations to make smarter operational decisions.
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Today's topic is one of that almost everyone has heard of, but almost nobody can explain in plain English.
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Microsoft Cloud for sustainability.
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Is it just a fancy carbon calculator for big corporations?
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Or is it something much bigger?
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Here's the thing.
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Right now, most companies cannot tell you their carbon footprint.
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Not because they don't want to or don't care, but because the data is a complete mess.
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It lives in utility bills, fuel logs, supplier spreadsheets, HR systems.
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It's scattered across different departments, different formats, and different people who never talk to each other.
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Sustainability teams spend most of their time just hunting down data instead of doing something useful with it.
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Microsoft Cloud for sustainability is a platform that takes that chaos and turns it into a clear, actionable picture.
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By the end of this episode, you'll understand what it actually is, how the three building blocks work together,
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and why real companies are already using it to save time, money, and the planet.
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The messy reality of sustainability data.
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We have to understand the problem before we can understand the solution.
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So here it is. Imagine you work for a mid-sized company with a few thousand employees.
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Someone in leadership says, "We need to report our carbon footprint for this year."
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Simple question, right? Not even close.
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That one question triggers a chain reaction.
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You need electricity data from every office and factory.
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Fuel consumption from the fleet vehicles, air travel data from HR, waste disposal records from facility managers,
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and supplier data from procurement.
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Each of these lives in a different system, managed by a different person, in a completely different format.
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One facility manager sends you a PDF of last year's utility bills.
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Another sends an Excel spreadsheet with columns in a different order.
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Procurement gives you a CSV export from their supplier portal,
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and HR has a separate system for tracking business travel.
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None of them talk to each other, and none of them use the same units.
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So you get electricity in kilowatt hours, natural gas in terms, and fuel in gallons.
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You're basically trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces come from different boxes.
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And regulations like the EU's corporate sustainability reporting directive, CSRD,
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are making accurate reporting mandatory, not optional.
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Miss the deadline or get it wrong and you face fines, reputational damage or worse.
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So the pressure is on, but the tools most companies have are still just spreadsheets and email.
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Companies needed something better, a simple fix for a messy problem.
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That's where Microsoft Cloud for sustainability comes in.
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What Microsoft Cloud for sustainability actually is, here's the simplest definition.
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Microsoft Cloud for sustainability is not a single app.
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It's a connected platform built on the power platform and Dynamics 365.
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Think of it as a central command center for all your sustainability data.
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Imagine your company's data is scattered across dozens of filing cabinets in different rooms.
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Microsoft Cloud for sustainability pulls all those papers out,
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sorts them, translates them into the same language,
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and gives you one clear view of what's actually happening.
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The platform has three main jobs, record your emissions, report on them accurately,
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and reduce your impact over time.
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Record, report, reduce.
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That's the cycle.
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Microsoft launched this in 2021 as part of their own commitment to be carbon negative by 2030.
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They learned a lot from managing their own sustainability data and turned that experience into a product for everyone else.
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It comes in two tiers.
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Essentials cost $4,000 per month and covers the basics.
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Carbon, water, waste tracking, and calculations for scope one, two, and some scope three emissions.
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Premium costs $12,000 per month and unlocks the advanced stuff.
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Full scope three coverage, AI-powered insights, co-pilot integration,
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product carbon footprint management, and more storage.
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So there's an option for smaller companies just getting started
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and for large enterprises with complex reporting needs.
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And it's not just about carbon anymore.
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The platform now covers water, waste, and social and governance data, too.
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The full ESG picture, but carbon is where most companies start, and that's what we'll focus on.
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Building block one, getting the data in.
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So how does this actually work?
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Let's walk through the three building blocks, starting with the first one,
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getting the data into the system.
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Because without data, you've got nothing to calculate, nothing to report, nothing to act on.
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Microsoft gives you four different ways to bring data in.
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You pick the one that fits your situation.
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Option A is the simplest.
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Excel templates.
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Microsoft provides pre-built templates for each data category.
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Electricity usage, fuel consumption, waste disposal, you name it.
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The template already has the right columns, the right format, the right structure.
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You download it, fill in your numbers, and upload it back into the system.
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That's it.
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This works great for small teams or companies just getting started.
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No technical skills needed.
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Option B is where it gets more powerful, power query.
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This is a tool built into the platform that can pull data directly from other systems.
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We're talking over 40 connectors, SAP Salesforce utility providers, you name it.
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Instead of exporting a CSV file, emailing it to yourself and uploading it manually,
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you set up a connection once and the data flows in automatically.
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You can even schedule it to run on a regular basis every month, every week.
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Whatever makes sense.
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This is the option most companies graduate to once they're past the pilot phase.
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Option C is partner connectors.
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Microsoft has pre-built integrations with companies like EcoAct and other ESG data providers.
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If you're already working with a sustainability data partner, chances are there's a connector
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that plugs straight into Microsoft Cloud for sustainability.
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You authenticate, configure the schedule, and data flows in without any custom work.
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Option D covers the edge cases.
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Manual data collection.
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Sometimes data doesn't come from a structured system you can connect to.
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Maybe you need to ask facility managers for electricity readings.
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Maybe you need HR to submit travel data.
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The platform has a built in portal where you can send data requests to people inside your
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organization.
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They get an email, fill in the required information, and submit it.
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It lands in the system, ready for calculation.
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Here's the key thing about all four options.
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Every piece of data flows into the same standard data model.
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That means everything speaks the same language.
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No more mismatched spreadsheets.
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No more converting units manually.
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No more wondering if the numbers from different departments are even comparable.
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The platform handles all of that.
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So data is in the system.
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But raw numbers don't tell you anything.
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You need to turn them into actual emissions.
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Building block two, calculating your real impact.
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So you've got all this raw data.
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10,000 miles driven.
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50,000 kilowatt hours of electricity.
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What does that actually mean for the climate?
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Activity numbers alone don't tell you much.
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You need to know the carbon that comes with each mile or each kilowatt hour.
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That's where emissions factors come in.
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Think of an emissions factor as a conversion rate.
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For every mile in a certain type of vehicle, a fixed amount of CO2 is produced.
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For every kilowatt hour from a specific power grid, a fixed amount of CO2 is produced.
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You apply your activity data by the right factor and you get your emissions number.
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Microsoft built these factors right into the platform.
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Libraries from the EPA, the international energy agency and other trusted sources are already there.
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The math happens automatically.
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You don't need to be a carbon accountant to get accurate results.
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The calculations cover three scopes.
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Scope one is the direct stuff you own or control.
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The fuel in your company trucks, the natural gas in your factory furnace.
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Scope two is the energy you buy.
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The electricity that lights your offices.
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Scope three is everything else in your value chain.
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You send data requests to suppliers and they submit their information in a structured way.
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The platform does all the calculation work in the background.
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You input the activity data.
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It applies the right emissions factors.
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Outcomes your carbon footprint across all three.
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You can't get the same amount of energy.
191
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You can't get the same amount of energy.
192
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You can't get the same amount of energy.
193
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You can't get the same amount of energy.
194
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You can't get the same amount of energy.
195
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You can't get the same amount of energy.
196
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You can't get the same amount of energy.
197
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You can't get the same amount of energy.
198
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You can't get the same amount of energy.
199
00:08:51,200 --> 00:08:53,200
You can't get the same amount of energy.
200
00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:55,200
You can't get the same amount of energy.
201
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You can't get the same amount of energy.
202
00:08:57,200 --> 00:08:59,200
You can't get the same amount of energy.
203
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You can't get the same amount of energy.
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And honestly, it's a nightmare.
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Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability includes ready-made templates for the major global frameworks.
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CSRD, GRI, IFRS, S1 and S2, SASB, ASRS, BRSR, pretty much every reporting standard you'd need is covered.
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You pick the one you're reporting against and the platform maps your data to the right fields automatically.
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No manual mapping.
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There's also an alternate emissions feature that lets you run parallel calculations.
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Maybe you report under the greenhouse gas protocol for your voluntary targets,
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but your local regulator requires a different calculation approach.
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Instead of maintaining two separate systems, you run both calculations from the same underlying data.
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The platform keeps them separate and tracks which methodology was used for each.
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Auditors appreciate this.
215
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The data trail feature gives them end-to-end visibility into where every number came from.
216
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They click on a reported emissions figure and trace it back through the calculation to the original activity data and the source document.
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No more digging through email chains trying to figure out who entered what, and then there's co-pilot.
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The AI assistant built into sustainability manager can generate draft disclosures,
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summarise findings and answer questions in natural language.
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You ask, "What were our total scope to emissions last year?"
221
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And it pulls the answer from the system.
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You ask it to draft a paragraph for your CSRD report and it produces a first draft based on your actual data.
223
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What used to take three months of manual work now happens in a week?
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Emirates, NBD, proved that?
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They cut their reporting time from three months down to one week.
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That's a 75% reduction in effort.
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Real results. Companies using it today.
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So the platform handles the data, the calculations and the reports.
229
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But does it actually work in the real world? Let's look at some real companies using it right now.
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Emirates, NBD, a major bank in Dubai was drowning in manual reporting.
231
00:10:38,200 --> 00:10:44,200
Their sustainability teams spent months each year pulling data from different departments, reconciling spreadsheets and trying to get a clear picture.
232
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After implementing Microsoft Cloud for sustainability, they cut their reporting time from three months down to one week.
233
00:10:50,200 --> 00:10:52,200
That's 75% faster.
234
00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:59,200
Every time visibility into their emissions, they made targeted investments like a solar plant in Turkey and reduced their emissions by nearly 50% in a single year.
235
00:10:59,200 --> 00:11:06,200
ILO, a Brazilian payments company, was managing 63 different databases, each with its own format and structure.
236
00:11:06,200 --> 00:11:10,200
After implementing the platform, they reduced manual work by 42%.
237
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That's 403 hours saved per year.
238
00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:16,200
Basically an entire person's time freed up.
239
00:11:16,200 --> 00:11:23,200
Also saved about $15,000 annually in consulting costs because they no longer needed outside help to crunch their numbers.
240
00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:27,200
Mitsubishi Electric used the platform to refine their Susty Smart Building model.
241
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The result was unexpected. The building actually generates more energy than it uses, a 115% reduction in energy consumption.
242
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That's not just reporting, that's innovation driven by data.
243
00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:43,200
Worldwide technology, an IT services company, cut the time spent on emissions calculations by up to 20%.
244
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Tasks that used to take weeks now happen with the push of a button.
245
00:11:47,200 --> 00:11:50,200
The common thread here is simple, these aren't tech giants with unlimited budgets.
246
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They're real companies in banking, payments, manufacturing and IT services.
247
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And the biggest win for all of them wasn't just checking a compliance box and it was gaining visibility into where they could make changes that save money and reduce their environmental impact at the same time.
248
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So here's the bottom line, Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability turns a slow, manual, error-prone process into something automated and accurate.
249
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It's just three building blocks. Get the data in, calculate your impact report and take action.
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The real value isn't just checking compliance boxes, it's about finding ways to save money while shrinking your environmental footprint.
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If you're a business leader or handling ESG data, start by figuring out where your sustainability data lives today.
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That's the single most powerful step you can take.
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