Accenture and Microsoft, along with their three way partnership Avanade, are becoming a member of forces to sort out local weather change, one of the vital crucial and pressing challenges for each companies and folks. With a right away emphasis on delivering options to assist organizations rework their operations, merchandise, companies and worth chains to assist speed up the transition to web zero, the three firms will increase their focus to broader environmental, social and governance (ESG) challenges sooner or later.
The businesses are investing within the co-development of progressive options — architected and designed on the onset to emit much less carbon over their life cycle — and providing advisory companies to assist companies cut back carbon emissions, velocity the transition to new power sources, and shrink and even get rid of waste of finite sources reminiscent of water, meals and uncooked supplies.
With the highly effective mixture of Accenture Sustainability Providers, Avanade’s human-centered digital expertise, the Microsoft Cloud and every firm’s sturdy information and synthetic intelligence (AI) capabilities, the expanded strategic partnership will handle each horizontal and industry-specific sustainability challenges to assist drive influence and ship new worth.
Julie Candy, chair and chief government officer of Accenture, stated, “More and more, as all stakeholders look to enterprise to maneuver from dedication to motion on environmental challenges, firms that embed sustainability throughout their enterprises can develop into a strong power for change. Our partnership with Microsoft and Avanade will assist organizations discover new worth on the intersection of expertise and sustainability – from embracing inexperienced software program growth ideas and sustainable cloud migrations, to digital twin expertise adoption – to drive stronger efficiency and competitiveness, and make progress on their decarbonization targets and their journey to web zero.”
Judson Althoff, government vp and chief business officer, Microsoft, stated, “Working sustainably has develop into a supply of aggressive benefit, enabling organizations to extend effectivity, speed up progress and lead with objective. By combining our experience with Accenture and Avanade, we now have a possibility and accountability to ship progressive options that can empower organizations to attain their sustainability targets and drive lasting environmental change.”
By means of the expanded strategic partnership, the businesses will collaborate to increase present capabilities and develop new joint choices throughout 4 areas:
- Digital Manufacturing Transition – Manufacturing organizations have to quickly set up and scale the digital basis of particular person manufacturing websites and manufacturing facility networks. Joint choices will assist enhance asset utilization and deploy enterprise fashions that allow circularity. They may even apply digital twin expertise to assist cut back emissions, waste, the consumption of supplies, water and different sources in manufacturing and operations, and enhance transparency throughout the worth chain. An Accenture and UN World Compact research discovered that globally, 44% of CEOs say that digital twins will make a big influence on sustainability of their {industry} over the following 5 years.
- Low Carbon Vitality Transition – Seventy-three p.c of CEOs instructed Accenture and UN World Compact that they really feel elevated strain to behave on sustainability over the following three years. To take action, companies want to remodel operations throughout the power worth chain. Joint choices will assist firms within the transition to a web zero economic system by connecting and integrating power infrastructure to develop carbon intelligence, and rework buyer affords and enterprise fashions that may help low carbon power experiences.
- Sustainable IT with Microsoft Azure and Inexperienced Software program Engineering – Organizations are in search of energy-efficient infrastructure together with better workload flexibility and enterprise agility. Accenture analysis reveals that shifting from on-premise information facilities to the general public cloud can cut back an enterprise’s power utilization by 65% and lower carbon emissions by greater than 84%. New options on Microsoft Azure span technique growth and evaluation of present IT infrastructure; architecting and piloting options; a carbon conscious strategy to migration and inexperienced software program engineering; and steady enchancment and enterprise transformation with low carbon cloud as its basis.
- ESG Measurement, Analytics and Efficiency with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability – Going through growing regulatory and stakeholder calls for, organizations want insights at their fingertips to innovate and embed sustainability into the design of recent services. Joint options will concentrate on offering sustainability intelligence for worth chains by serving to to interrupt siloes and supply data-led insights so purchasers cannot solely file and report sustainability metrics, however — much more importantly — take motion. Firms that constantly display excessive ESG efficiency rating 2.6x greater on whole shareholder return than counterparts, in accordance with Accenture analysis.
Pam Maynard, chief government officer, Avanade, stated, “The world is at an inflection level the place organizations are anticipated to play an lively position in addressing sustainability points. Now greater than ever, expertise is vital to accelerating environmental, social and governance targets and enabling organizations to be sustainable via continuous change. We’re excited in regards to the alternative to assist leaders leverage the facility of individuals and expertise to take sensible sustainability actions that make a real human influence.”
Josh Matthews, {industry} analyst from HFS Analysis, added, “Sustainability applied sciences and companies want ecosystems of companions to refine and scale options. They need to shortly set the benchmark for others to comply with given how far behind most organizations, industries, and governments are in aligning below the worldwide sustainability context of decarbonization and addressing all 17 UN Objectives. Ecosystem collaborations, like this one between Accenture, Microsoft and Avanade, is not going to solely assist to refine and scale options, but in addition assist to unravel the info and transparency challenges which organizations steadily cite to us as main boundaries to their sustainability journeys.”
This expanded strategic partnership builds on Accenture, Microsoft and Avanade’s present joint sustainability efforts, together with their pioneering position within the Inexperienced Software program Basis, a non-profit that’s constructing a trusted ecosystem of individuals, requirements, tooling and practices for inexperienced software program growth. By means of a joint initiative referred to as Challenge Amplify, Accenture and Microsoft have additionally supported dozens of start-ups centered on social influence and sustainability by offering entry to rising expertise and experience to assist scale their options.
