Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) are expanding their alliance to help companies embed sustainability into their business, meet growing customer and stakeholder expectations, and contribute to advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The powerful combination of Accenture’s Sustainability Services, Salesforce Sustainability Cloud, and Salesforce Customer 360 will, for the first time, bring sustainability to the front office and provide the C-suite with true visibility into their company’s historical and real-time environmental, social and governance (ESG) data. Companies will be able to track, measure and act on a range of sustainability initiatives, including reporting on carbon usage, supporting customer engagements, creating positive consumer experiences, meeting regulatory requirements and developing new business models.
“Our clients’ commitment to sustainability has never been greater,” said Julie Sweet, chief executive officer at Accenture. “As industries reimagine and rebuild from the pandemic, they have the opportunity to embed sustainability by design to drive their customer agenda. We are delighted to expand our partnership with Salesforce to help organizations both create value and deliver on their values.”
“Every CEO is recognizing their responsibilities don’t stop at the edge of the corporate campus or Zoom,” said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO, Salesforce. “By integrating sustainability deep into the fabric of our companies, our businesses will become more successful, our communities more equal, our societies more just and our planet healthier. We’re incredibly proud to be working with Accenture to help customers more readily drive sustainability programs that benefit all stakeholders and create business value.”
Salesforce Sustainability Cloud, built on Salesforce Customer 360, will provide a trusted platform that gives customers a 360-degree view of their corporate environmental impact to help them measure and manage their carbon footprint and transparently report investor-grade climate data. Accenture will help integrate Salesforce Sustainability Cloud into their business strategies, operating models, technologies, and core processes and systems with industry-specific requirements and develop sustainability insights that can scale across organizations and their ecosystems. Later this year, Accenture and Salesforce will be working together to expand the platform and services to track and analyze broader ESG metrics—from water and waste management to diversity & inclusion.
“Climate change continues to be one of the most critical challenges facing business and the broader planet,” said George Oliver, CEO of Johnson Controls, the world-leader in smart, healthy and sustainable buildings. “We are pleased to be working with Salesforce and Accenture in accelerating sustainability activities for JCI, for our customers and our communities, especially as momentum for action continues to grow.”
Sustainability is now a business imperative, and consumers increasingly expect business to play a leadership role in taking tangible action on the SDGs, which include gender equality, poverty, and climate change. The companies leveraging the combination of sustainability and technology are 2.5x more likely to be among tomorrow’s strongest-performing businesses than others, according to new Accenture research.
“The partnership will allow Accenture and Salesforce to use their joint forces to address the rapidly growing end-user demand for data-based insights around sustainability performance and metrics-driven approaches that help turn ESG topics into drivers for positive business outcomes,” said Bjoern Stengel, senior research analyst, Worldwide Business Consulting & ESG Business Services at IDC. “Our research shows that more and more companies realize that a sustainable business strategy means more than just ‘doing good’ – it means ‘doing well by doing good’. This initiative can help customers on this journey by letting them capture relevant ESG data as well as manage and measure performance against their sustainability targets.”
Accenture and Salesforce both have significant relationships with the World Economic Forum and long-term commitments to advancing the SDGs, giving each company a deeper understanding of how to simultaneously drive business growth and long-term sustainable value for shareholders and stakeholders.
