Accelerating Net Zero
What is a Salesforce accelerator?
No, an accelerator won’t make your car go faster, but it will get you set-up fast with a tried-and-trusted set of configurations, layouts and processes.
At Inardua we are developing a range of accelerator packages for clients to choose from, based on the feedback we’ve had from numerous client conversations - as well as our predictions for needs in the future.
An accelerator is a repeatable and reusable set of configuration. This doesn’t mean there’s no scope for customisation, but it does mean that because we have built it before we can repeat it a lot quicker and offer it at a lower price compared to designing and building from scratch.
Net Zero Cloud Accelerators
Net Zero Cloud lends itself to support via accelerators, as there are consistencies and repeatable approaches in the way companies record their emissions in Scope 1, 2 and 3. This allows for repetition, speed, and efficiency in the initial set-up of the platform to get organisations using Net Zero Cloud for their carbon accounting quickly.
The two accelerators I am going to talk about in this blog are the Starter Edition Accelerator and the Financial Accelerator.
Starter Edition Accelerator
The Starter Edition Accelerator will get your company off the ground with its Net Zero journey and give you the tools to record emissions from any stationary assets you have.
This includes:
Buildings, such as Offices, Data Centers or Manufacturing centers.
Emissions from any fleet vehicles owned by your organisation, from electric cars to private jets
Additionally, you will be able to record Scope 3 emissions from either of the following: Business Travel or Procurement.
This will allow you to focus your initial Scope 3 emissions data on the area with the most significant impact. Business Travel Data will allow you to record information related to activity in your business such as:
Hotel Stays
Flights
Taxis/Limousines
Freight Hauling
Rental Car Usage
Meanwhile, if you decide to include Procurement Emissions you will have an overview of your spend-based data linked to the suppliers in your supply chain. This will provide an understanding both of where your spend is focused, and which areas in your supply chain are having the greatest emission impact.
The Starter Edition Accelerator will also allow you to visualize your data with the setup of a number of dashboards, from Climate Action Dashboard to Business Travel Impact Dashboard. Training material will also be provided to your users so they can seamlessly transition into using the system.
An initial import of your data will also be included in the Starter Edition Accelerator, this will allow you to see your impact thus far and give you actionable insights moving forwards to help your company reach Net Zero.
All this will be built in a scalable manner so that your Net Zero Cloud platform can grow as and when your company expands, or regulatory requirements change.
Financial Accelerator
In addition to the Starter Edition Accelerator, is our upcoming ‘Financial Accelerator’. And I wanted to give a little bit of insight to what this is, and why we’ve started working on this.
Spend-based emission data is often the easiest for companies to obtain, and the Financial Accelerator provides the means to convert accounting information into automatically calculated emissions.
If you want to see the impact of historical data and also gain a clearer understanding of your Scope 3 emissions then this option can get you this insight quickly.
Starting out with a net zero journey can seem quite daunting, especially if you want to record scope 3 emissions. With hundreds, perhaps thousands of transactions a year contributing to scope 3 emissions for a company manually adding these would be a long and labour-intensive task.
When we completed our own implementation of Net Zero Cloud fully recording scope 3 emissions felt like a near-impossible task, until the idea of a tool that will predict our emissions from all of our financial transactions was born.
All you need is exportable accounting data, allowing you to backdate emissions as far as you would like and associate them with the correct supplier.
You will be able to attribute emissions to a supplier, a year, an industry and more so you can have a better understanding of your emissions spread.
Whilst spend-based emissions are not as accurate as fuel-based or quantity-based predictions, it is a good starting point to predict emissions dating back the past few years which otherwise would be forgotten.
Having a tool like this that enables a company to backdate emissions will then allow the company to set realistic goals and targets to work towards achieving their ultimate Net Zero goals.
How does it work?
The Financial Accelerator will take the information from the accounting software, the Economic Sector code, and the credit amount and spent date.
It then predicts emissions by using emissions factors in Net Zero Cloud. We have created automations to associate each line-item of spend to the relevant supplier, year and industry sector so you can have a full insight into your emissions across the board.
With a few simple steps from the user’s perspective, you can have years worth of data in Net Zero Cloud in a matter of a few minutes.
What next?
We definitely aren’t stopping here with our accelerators and have big plans and ideas for this space.
As well as the upcoming Financial Accelerator, we have plans to look at aligning Net Zero Cloud seamlessly with Field Service to allow companies to measure journeys taken by reps in the field.
Being a part of this space is something we feel strongly about and helping others to achieve Net Zero really aligns with our company’s values.
If any of these accelerators sound like they might be of interest to your company or you have any questions on the above then we are only an email away please get in touch.