136 www. t e c h n o l o g y r e c o r d . c om F E ATUR E “Without true and accurate accounting, we can’t measure our progress. That’s step one, and the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability is helping public and private sector organisations to do it.” The cloud platform enables organisations to record, report and reduce their emissions, invest in sustainable practices, and partner with experts to accelerate their goals. Microsoft has set the tone for how businesses can and should address their own environmental impact. For example, the firm has said that it is on track to reach its goal of using 100 per cent renewable energy by 2025, having procured 5.8 gigawatts of renewable energy across 10 countries in 2020 and 2021. It has also been piloting a 24/7 renewable energy matching solution in the Netherlands with energy provider Eneco and technology company FlexiDAO. The solution will offset hourly energy consumption at one of Microsoft’s Amsterdam data centres with power generated by Dutch offshore wind farms. Microsoft has become well-known for its partner ecosystem and the benefits this creates on many levels. As part of this, the firm has also been working with partners such as Schneider Electric and Disaster Tech to accelerate the journey towards more sustainable infrastructural planning within the public sector. US-based Disaster Tech specialises in providing decision support technologies for situational awareness, operational coordination and planning before, during and after disasters. The firm leverages Microsoft technologies such as the Azure cloud to provide distributed high-performance computing infrastructure for conducting modelling, simulation and data science workflows to public sector clients. “Our partnership with Microsoft enables Disaster Tech to deploy sustainable solutions to clients faster with added agility to save time and money,” says Sean Griffin, CEO of Disaster Tech. “As a public benefit corporation, we strive to provide sustainable solutions while also supporting public sector clients on their own journeys towards sustainability. With the help of Microsoft, we are delivering cutting-edge solutions for agencies in disaster risk reduction, resilience and sustainability.” We asked a selection of Microsoft partners how they are using the firm’s technology to deliver tools that improve the efficiency and outcome of sustainability projects in the public sector Partner perspectives “ Public sector organisations are setting the standards to which businesses, organisations and people must follow” JEREMY M. GOLDBERG, MICROSOFT “Schneider Electric’s 30-year partnership with Microsoft has innovated how we help public sector clients create sustainable infrastructure to support low-carbon growth. Schneider has been using Microsoft’s Azure technology suite to capitalise on cloud computing and smart meta technology to transform our clients’ operations into connected and collaborative systems that accelerate decarbonisation and resilience. We helped Macon-Bibb County, a growing community in Georgia, USA, to implement county-wide building management and telecom systems, as well as Schneider ’s EcoStruxure advisor software – which is hosted on Azure – to reduce energy use by 32 per cent, adopt renewable energy and save $36 million.” Tammy Fulop Vice President of Sustainability, Schneider Electric
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