Commercial, Energy Procurement, Industrial, Commercial, Industrial, Sourcing Renewables, Wind  -  August 29, 2016

Salesforce was at 37% renewables in FY'16

En route to a corporate goal of eventually powering 100% of its global operations with renewables, Salesforce.com procured 37% of its electricity from clean and renewable sources in fiscal year 2016, according to the company's recently published sustainability report. 

Of that 37%, 30% was attributable to renewable energy credits, the San Francisco-based cloud computing company said in its report. Also boosting its supply of  clean energy were two virtual power purchase agreements Salesforce inked in December 2015 for 40 MW of wind power from West Virginia and Texas. In total, Salesforce said the purchases offset 23% of its total direct and indirect emissions in fiscal 2016.  

In addition to its renewable energy sourcing goal, the company has also committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and listed the environment "a key stakeholder" in the business. As such, Salesforce also touted the environmental benefits offered via its cloud platform, which the company says helped customers avoid emitting more than 2 million metric tons of carbon each year:

Not all clouds are created equal. The core Salesforce platform is 50 times more environmentally friendly on average than on-premise solutions. By moving to the cloud, Salesforce customers avoid emitting more than 2 million metric tons of carbon each year. In FY16, our platform supported nearly 1 trillion transactions, 67 percent more than in FY15. As we’ve continued to grow, we’re proud that we’ve kept the average amount of carbon per transaction steady at 0.07 grams since FY13. If we take into account the carbon we offset by using renewable energy, this metric improves to 0.06 grams of CO2e per transaction in FY16. 

The company also noted that 46% of its employees worked in "green building certified" spaces in fiscal year 2016. The full report is available on the company's website.