Deloitte & Salesforce Partner to Speed Up ESG Reporting
Salesforce has announced that Deloitte, the global consulting company, has implemented GreenLight powered by Salesforce (GPBS) into its operations, across more than 120 countries.
The programme (first announced in 2023) was created as a collaboration between Deloitte and Salesforce, combining elements of code and capabilities from one another's data management products.
GPBS is to be viewed as an extension or an update to Deloitte's extant GreenLight Solution product, which offers clients a platform capable of streamlining their ESG reporting process.
This new announcement from Salesforce heralds news that Deloitte has successfully introduced the programme into its own operational chain, bolstering its sustainability credentials and providing a postitive global-scale case study for clients interested in the product.
But what is GreenLight Solution and why might companies need it?
- Data Management: GreenLight Solution collects and organises environmental data from various sources across a company, providing a clear picture of its carbon footprint
- Strategy Development: Using advanced algorithms and a vast database of emissions factors and abatement projects, the software helps businesses create optimised roadmaps for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
- Financial Insights: The tool offers insights into the potential financial impacts of different climate action initiatives, including information on available tax credits and incentives across multiple countries.
- Integration: GreenLight Solution is designed to work seamlessly with existing business technologies and strategies, making it easier for companies to implement sustainable practices.
Why did Deloitte need this new programme?
The impetus for this technological leap stems from Deloitte's WorldClimate ambition, a set of meaningful commitments that necessitated a more sophisticated and efficient sustainability management solution. Essentially, Deloitte thought — new targets, new management system. The consulting giant decided to design a product capable of serving its own needs, which could also be rolled out to clients.
Kwasi Mitchell, Deloitte Global Chief Sustainability Officer, emphasises the importance of these recent advancements, saying:
"As organisations prioritise developing strategies to advance sustainability, having the right technology solutions to achieve their net zero and sustainability goals is critical."
The urgency of this implementation is underscored by recent findings from a Deloitte and Touche LLP study, which revealed that while 99% of US public companies are preparing for impending sustainability disclosure requirements, more than half of executives cite data quality as a significant challenge. GPBS directly addresses this issue by streamlining reporting processes and enhancing data integrity.
Why was Salesforce selected for this programme?
At its core, GPBS leverages one of Salesforce's most important sustainability reporting programmes — Net Zero Cloud.
What makes Net Zero Cloud so special — and so attractive to Deloitte — is its ability to consolidate data from disparate sources into one unified view.
These days, the word 'silos' (teams or individuals whose skills and knowledge are isolated from other areas of the business) is used with increasing frequency in corporate circles. Net Zero Cloud has the ability to break down information silos, connecting disparate teams through data.
Deloitte wanted to harness the power of this programme, combining it with their own to create a product capable of giving clients in any industry a bespoke platform for reporting sustainability.
Is Deloitte using itself as 'client zero'?
First and foremost, Deloitte wanted to partner with Salesforce to harness Net Zero Cloud's power for its own ends. As one of the world's largest company's with a presence in dozens of countries, Deloitte's operations produce a lot of data, all of which needs measuring to effectively report on ESG.
Salesforce's programme has allowed Deloitte to do this. Then, looking outwards, the thinking seems to be that Deloitte can and will scale the product to its global market.
"As organisations prioritise developing strategies to advance sustainability, having the right technology solutions to achieve their net zero and sustainability goals is critical."
Has GreenLight powered by Salesforce worked for Deloitte?
Since its implementation, GreenLight powered by Salesforce has yielded substantial benefits for Deloitte. The organisation has successfully automated several manual processes, bringing financial-reporting-grade discipline to ESG reporting. This has enabled various teams, including sustainability, social impact and procurement, to utilise a single technology platform for their reporting needs, significantly reducing complexity and data fragmentation.
Moreover, Deloitte has designed a robust year-end process to maintain an accurate and trackable greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint within the system. This ensures data reliability and allows for future adjustments without compromising the integrity of assured data sets. The implementation of field history tracking for key performance indicators (KPIs) and the establishment of approval workflows have further enhanced data accuracy and validity.
Perhaps most notably, Deloitte has constructed and implemented a data system to track 35 societal impact KPIs. These encompass a wide range of metrics, including donations categorised by source and type, program management costs, volunteering hours, the value of time dedicated to volunteering, and the number of individuals impacted by Deloitte's societal impact programs. This comprehensive reporting supports Deloitte's worldwide commitment to invest more than US$3bn over a decade in societal impact initiatives, addressing systemic problems in communities globally.
Earlier in September 2024, Sustainability Magazine hosted Smruti Naik-Jones, CSO of UK and North-South Europe at Deloitte at Sustainability LIVE London, who presented on one of Deloitte's most recent global sustainability reports.
As Smruti's talk showed, sustainability and reporting are two fundamental pieces of Deloitte's modern business. Since the implementation of GPBS, there is hope that Deloitte's success in these fields will continue to grow.
After her speech, Smruti reflected on the contemporary landscape of corporate sustainability: "Companies that continue to proactively accelerate meaningful action and amplify impact through collaboration are going to be well positioned to thrive in the economy of the future."
How will Deloitte & Salesforce's collaboration affect the wider industry?
Ultimately, it remains to be seen if GPBS will be taken up as an industry standard for reporting on ESG and sustainability. One thing is true, though — companies will have to do their reporting if they want to succeed in the modern world. With a demand so universal, Deloitte and Salesforce seem bound for something special.
Suzanne DiBianca, EVP and Chief Impact Officer at Salesforce, views this collaboration as a catalyst for positive change: "Collaborating with Deloitte to implement GreenLight powered by Salesforce is a significant step forward to helping companies achieve their sustainability goals."
"With Net Zero Cloud, we're providing businesses a powerful, unified platform to view and report on their ESG data."
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