How Salesforce adopted an end-to-end approach to source high-quality carbon projects with real climate impact

In an era where corporate responsibility and climate action are paramount, Salesforce stands out as a leader in sustainability. The tech giant has taken significant strides towards a greener future, with a strategy that centers on not just meeting regulatory requirements but leading by example and driving impactful change across the industry. 

We spoke to Suzanne DiBianca, Salesforce’s Chief Impact Officer, responsible for Salesforce's overall industry-leading climate strategy, to discuss their approach, challenges, and the importance of ensuring every step they take towards reducing their carbon footprint is both effective and verifiable. 

Identifying and Shortlisting the Right Projects 

Core for Salesforce is making the right impact, and the partnership with Sylvera has significantly enhanced their efforts to be able to identify and shortlist the carbon projects that best help them achieve their sustainability efforts. 

“At Salesforce, we think a lot about where we can invest that’ll make the most impact on the planet and communities, not just the most impact on us as a company. We also always look to third-party assurance and verification, especially as it relates to additionality in our investments. Sylvera is key for us as it helps us identify these top projects.” 

Because projects in the voluntary carbon market can be very fragmented across different registries, investors either have to retrieve periodic downloads of registry data and manually reconcile it on spreadsheets or switch from one registry to another – both of which are time consuming and cumbersome. By leveraging Sylvera’s Catalog, Salesforce has been able to get access to one of the most comprehensive overviews of projects in the market spanning from Biochar to Landfill Methane, all to ensure that they can easily find the projects that best fit their strategy. Furthermore by using screenings Salesforce quickly shortlists potential projects for investment before conducting further due diligence supported by Sylvera's Ratings. 

Ensuring Quality and Credibility 

Quality has been critical to Salesforce throughout this journey, ensuring credibility for sustainable, long-term impact. They have now integrated Sylvera's ratings into their investment criteria and utilized their due diligence on credits for their carbon credit program. Salesforce benefits from Sylvera across all project types, with a particular focus on nature-based projects. 

"Sylvera’s technology provides the transparency and accountability that is crucial for the credibility of our carbon offsets." 

Sylvera’s robust verification processes help provide Salesforce with the confidence that their carbon credit projects are truly impactful, ensuring that each investment contributes meaningfully to their net-zero mission. Additionally, as part of their net-zero journey, Salesforce has developed the Net Zero Cloud, a complete ESG platform that helps companies track, manage and report out their carbon footprint  so they can accelerate their decarbonization journey. 

"By partnering with Sylvera, we're able to ensure that our carbon credit projects are genuinely impactful to people and the planet, and contribute to our mission of achieving net-zero emissions." 

The Road Ahead 

For over a decade, Salesforce has been on a sustainability transformation journey, adopting new employee policies, corporate infrastructure, and supplier enablement frameworks to reduce emissions. 

According to Suzanne DiBianca, a top priority for Salesforce is to continue to stay ahead in this area. Despite their impressive progress so far, they are by no means done yet. 

“A third of the US Fortune 500 have net-zero targets. It’s one thing to say you have a net-zero target; it’s another thing to publicly disclose your progress against those targets.” 

For Salesforce, climate action is a long-term strategy. Much like the upfront cost of buying an electric car paying off over time, daring to do things before they’re necessary is a move that’s certainly paying off for Salesforce. 

"We're really excited to work with Sylvera because their innovative, end-to-end approach to the carbon markets aligns perfectly with our sustainability goals at Salesforce."

About Salesforce 

Salesforce is a trailblazer in corporate climate action, one of the few companies in the world to source 100% renewable energy for its global operations. The company continues to push forward with ambitious goals, aiming to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030 and striving to reach near-zero emissions by 2040.

Salesforce is actively collaborating with organizations like Symbiosis, the LEAF Coalition, the Energy Transition Accelerator, the Business Alliance for Scaling Climate Solutions, and the VCMI to enhance transparency and integrity in the carbon market. These partnerships are focused on advancing the market by developing robust standards, best practices, and leveraging technology to ensure accurate measurement, reporting, and verification of carbon credits. Together, we are working to create a more accountable and effective carbon market that supports global climate goals.

Salesforce is also a founder of 1t.org, a global initiative aimed at conserving, restoring, and growing healthy forest ecosystems by 2030, with a 100 million trees pledge. The company also developed a Nature Positive Strategy and is dedicated to supporting ecopreneurs - entrepreneurs focused on climate solutions- and driving the energy transition, alongside advancing sustainable AI initiatives. Salesforce's new Sustainable AI Policy Principles and the AI for Impact Accelerator are key components of its efforts to leverage technology for climate action.