Salesforce: Do Sustainability Executives Want to Use AI?

Based in the US, the Salesforce CRM software is used by more than 150,000 customers worldwide, including some of the largest, most influential companies.

Naturally, AI has hit the company radar — and hard. 

Salesforce has surveyed hundreds of sustainability executives to explore how AI is positively impacting their companies — and how they are managing the “green dilemma” of the technology’s intensive energy use, as AI-driven data centre power usage could double by 2026.

“These leaders are key global influencers who are doing the work to implement AI into their organisations’ sustainability strategy,” shares Suzanne DiBianca, EVP and Chief Impact Officer at Salesforce. 

“It is important to survey corporate sustainability leaders on how they’re approaching AI’s green dilemma. Their experiences inform and guide the development of best practices and strategic decisions to help mitigate AI’s environmental impact. Their unique perspectives provide valuable insights into critical challenges like AI’s high energy consumption, as well as opportunities to improve energy efficiency.”

The report headline? Despite almost half of leaders harbouring concerns about AI negatively impacting sustainability efforts within their organisations, more are optimistic that they can balance it out with AI’s benefits.

“With these report insights we can also empower our customers and our ecosystem of companies, partners and peers to meet their existing net zero and emissions reductions goals,” Suzanne continues. 

“We can encourage new ways to operationalise strategies around more aggressive Scope 1 and 2 actions and put more focus with their vendors, Scope 3, on setting science based targets. One way we’re doing this is by introducing a Sustainability Exhibit into our supplier contracts.

With the Exhibit we ask suppliers to set science-based targets, increase sustainability disclosures and deliver carbon-neutral products and services — all as part of doing business with Salesforce.

“Additionally, this research also identifies the gaps and challenges that sustainability teams face, helping them overcome these obstacles. For example, we are sharing our learnings through our new climate and AI Trail, Blueprint for Sustainable AI, to empower our employees and companies in our ecosystem to build free AI skills on Trailhead. 

“Together, we can form a more comprehensive approach to sustainable AI.”

Balancing AI with environmental targets

The report explores how AI is impacting sustainability initiatives as well as how the leaders are mitigating the negative impacts.

“From my perspective, there are three main takeaways worth focusing on,” Suzanne tells Sustainability Magazine.

• “First, sustainability professionals are not only using AI, but finding that it has already transformed their work. The top ways sustainability teams are using AI for sustainability include improving energy efficiency, 50%, carbon emissions modelling, 48%, and ensuring compliance with environmental standards and regulations, 47.
• “The second is there is a nuanced view of AI's role in sustainability — a feeling of both concern and optimism. While 4 in 10 worry about AI's potential negative impacts on sustainability efforts at their organisation, even more, 57%, are optimistic that they can balance the negative impact with AI’s benefits. 

• “And lastly, there’s a knowledge gap — the number one limitation to using AI for sustainability is a lack of education and training, with 79% of sustainability professionals saying educating others on sustainable practices is a priority in their role.”

Salesforce’s free online training programme, Trailhead, supports the workforce across industries in harnessing AI – including how best to develop AI sustainably, and implement it ethically. 

How can businesses engage with AI?

Suzanne outlines three key areas that businesses can – and should – engage with AI:

Driving innovation and transparency

"Companies can monitor and optimise energy consumption for AI," Suzanne says. "At Salesforce, we are making LLMs more sustainable by leveraging the newest, most efficient available hardware to reduce AI's emissions, training models in data centres in locations with abundant renewable energy and measuring and disclosing the environmental impacts of LLMs with the industry to drive transparency.

"We’ve also equipped our sustainability product, Net Zero Cloud, with Einstein AI capabilities to help companies simplify the process of reporting ESG data as they navigate a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape."

Supporting sustainable AI policy advocacy and philanthropic initiatives

Suzanne continues: "With AI changing how we live and work, it is more critical than ever that we develop the technology so it’s equitable and sustainable. We support climate nonprofits who are committed to sustainable and equitable AI innovation, and, at the same time, we’re setting clear policies to guide and advocate for responsible AI development for our company and our ecosystem of ecopreneurs, partners and customers.

"Salesforce recently introduced Sustainable AI Policy Principles, a framework aimed at guiding AI regulation to minimise environmental impact and spur climate innovation. We also launched our AI for Impact Accelerator, which supports nonprofits such as the Climate Collective Foundation, Good360, Groundswell, WattTime and others with product donations, pro-bono consulting, and US$2 million in shared funding so they can develop AI climate solutions."

Operationalise sustainability as part of your business model

Suzanne concludes; "At Salesforce, we established sustainability as a core company value. Our values guide everything we do and are operationalized across every area of the business. For us this means every internal organisation incorporating sustainability into its V2MOM — a Salesforce alignment process that drives the company’s success.

"At Dreamforce, our annual event, we also offer sustainable meal options with no beef, pork or almonds on the menu – conserving more than 10 million gallons of water. We also have compostable packaging, recyclable lanyards and badges to reduce waste and refillable water stations to reduce plastic pollution – keeping more than 100,000 plastic bottles out of landfills.

"Additionally, we’ve deployed more than 50 AI-powered tools to help our employees drive higher productivity. We have prioritised four enterprise-wide solutions designed to help enhance goal-setting, automate daily tasks, find information faster and streamline support — all while freeing up our Employee Success and IT teams to focus on more complex tasks. 

"We’re also investing in education and training programmes to enhance employees' knowledge and skills in sustainable AI practices, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. For example, we are leveraging Trailhead, our free online learning platform, to educate and train our employees — and our broader ecosystem — on sustainability and AI.

"This week, along with the research insights, we’re launching our latest trail focused on the intersection of climate and AI: Blueprint for Sustainable AI. The goal of the trial is to help empower other companies in addition to our employees to understand the value of creating a sustainable AI strategy, understand Salesforce’s strategy for sustainable AI and implement strategies for sustainable AI in their organisation.

"As well as this, we introduced an AI focused trail — Drive Productivity with Einstein AI — as the first learning path for employees and our ecosystems of Trailblazers to get hands-on with more than seven hours of learning about our Einstein AI products. Additionally, earlier this year we announced the Trailblazer Career Marketplace which connects Trailblazers seeking their next role in data, AI, and CRM with employers in the Salesforce ecosystem."

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