CRM Salesforce Inc

By Dieter Holger

Cloud-software company Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM) has launched a tool that helps businesses more quickly track and report carbon-dioxide emissions as part of a broader effort to build products that streamline environmental and social metrics.

Reporting annual greenhouse gas emissions has become widespread among larger companies. Last year, 86% of S&P 500 companies published sustainability or corporate responsibility reports that disclosed data--up from 20% in 2011, according to the Governance & Accountability Institute.

"Greenhouse gas accounting for every company out there is an incredibly tedious process," said Patrick Flynn, vice president of sustainability at Salesforce, in an interview on Tuesday.

The tool, called Salesforce Sustainability Cloud, provides a dashboard of a company's energy mix and emissions by source, including data centers, real estate and jet travel. For example, data on the platform can help calculate how a new investment--such as a building--will impact a company's environmental footprint. Users can also host discussions and auditors can sign on to get access to the data.

Around two years ago, Salesforce first developed the platform internally to save time but then realized there was broader demand, Mr. Flynn said. Before the creation of the platform, he said it would take around six months for Salesforce to report its emissions--now it takes just six weeks.

Mr. Flynn said that Salesforce has spoken to more than a hundred customers that welcomed a system to handle their carbon data.

"Many of them were just using a tangled web of spreadsheets," he said.

Mr. Flynn said Sustainability Cloud can be integrated into an existing Salesforce platform or purchased separately, but declined to provide the price for the service. He said Salesforce expects that thousands of its more than 150,000 customers will adopt the software.

"Climate change is an issue for all of them," Mr. Flynn said.

Looking ahead, Salesforce plans to build more tools to help companies manage their sustainability efforts, said Suzanne DiBianca, chief impact officer and executive vice president at Salesforce, in an interview.

In February of last year, Salesforce launched Philanthropy Cloud to help companies measure donations and volunteer work. Ms. DiBianca said the company is exploring a new product to help companies manage sustainability in their supply chains.

Write to Dieter Holger at dieter.holger@dowjones.com; @dieterholger

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 18, 2019 09:45 ET (13:45 GMT)

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