Microsoft extended the scope 3 carbon emissions measurement capabilities of its cloud sustainability portfolio to include carbon emissions from waste, upstream leased assets, and downstream leased assets. "We're really motivated to make progress on these as quickly as possible," Microsoft Senior Director of Sustainability Rosie Mastrandrea told SDxCentral, citing Microsoft's plans to improve the accessibility of accurate carbon accounting across all industries.

As part of the hyperscaler's Cloud for Sustainability portfolio, the Sustainability Manager tool became generally available in June. Mastrandrea explained companies have been using the tool to measure their own scope 1, scope 2, and some categories of scope 3 emissions since before the GA, and this has built the foundation of the tool's data layer.

The idea is "the more data we can get in there, the easier it is for our customers to be able to identify scope 3, which is just an enormous challenge right now," she said.

For example, if company A is a large retailer, and company B is a small business but also a supplier of company A, the retailer has to approach and connect with company B to accurately assess its scope 3 emissions. "But if I had a way to be using Microsoft Sustainability Manager too and had my emissions in the data layer, then you would have the ability to access that" within the tool, Mastrandrea said. "As we build out the data model and this data layer, it's going to get much easier for everybody to be able to see their scope 3."

Microsoft's focus so far has been on helping enterprises understand their complex data landscapes, which is usually every organization's first step to measuring and eventually reducing their environmental impact. "We're starting with really complex cases, and then we'll be able to move from there into how do we help smaller customers with more scaled types of offerings," Mastrandrea explained.

A major benefit of the Sustainability Manager she praised is its flexibility and accessibility. "We're really trying to work across organizations to make sure standards are being set and measurements can be more standardized for customers – for organizations everywhere, really," she said.

Microsoft also brings in partner data from utilities, for example, "and it's very extensible," Mastrandrea said. The tool can integrate data from a simple spreadsheet or from a more robust data platform. "That flexibility has been really key for customers to start on this journey with with us in the Cloud for Sustainability," she added.

The corporate sustainability culture at Microsoft is full of energy and more collaborative than any other role Mastrandrea has experienced. "It's been really interesting to observe," she said.

"One of the things that's really cool from my perspective is [sustainability] really touches every role at Microsoft," she added. Employees at Microsoft with sustainability as the main focus of their day job end up working with individuals across all types of teams. And she described a culture of open and collaborative conversations that go like this: "Let's discuss, let's collaborate, and then let's find the path forward," she said.

But Microsoft is still early in its sustainability journey, she noted. "Relatively speaking, everybody is. ... We have to see how things go and course correct."