Dreamforce 2022: Inspiration and Action To Get To Net Zero

With sustainability unveiled as a core value for Salesforce earlier this year, sustainable transformation was a key theme at Dreamforce 2022.

Packed with sessions featuring environmental experts and thought leaders, Dreamforce 2022 inspired the Salesforce community to take action for a more sustainable future. Attendees were empowered with practical tools and strategies to help them go net zero.

This was also the most sustainable Dreamforce ever, with many steps taken to reduce our carbon footprint:

• Dreamforce was 100% beefless and porkless for the attendee lunch. This helped conserve millions of gallons of water. 
• The lunch program offered 100% compostable packaging with containers, napkins, and utensils that could be tossed in the green bin.
• Once Dreamforce was over, attendees could drop their conference badges and lanyards in designated bins for recycling. 
• Instead of receiving backpacks and other giveaways, Salesforce is giving all attendees the opportunity to offset their travel-related emissions to Dreamforce – by supporting carbon offset projects and reducing greenhouse gases.
  
  Carbon projects at Dreamforce Net Zero Vista contributed to Salesforce’s commitment in growing 100,000,000 trees by 2030. 3,000 Salesforce employees also planted 5,000 native seedlings in partnership with not-for-profit organisations Literacy for Environmental Justice and Golden Gate Audubon Society. 
• Rather than providing packaged water, water stations were available throughout the campus for attendees to refill their own bottles.

^{Net Zero Treehouse located in the Net Zero Vista at Dreamforce.}  

Change-makers inspire sustainable transformation

Net Zero keynote with Dr Jane Goodall

World-renowned environmental advocate Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE spoke with Marc Benioff to kick off the Net Zero Summit at Dreamforce. Jane declared that it is ‘a new day for our environment’ and that it is critical for us to use innovative thinking to go net zero. She shared her own journey and experiences as a primatologist and anthropologist leading to her efforts in environmental leadership today. 

“We are part of the natural world, and not separate from it,” Jane said. “But today, we feel separated from it.”

This feeling of separation has led many people to think they can have unlimited economic development on a planet with finite natural resources. According to Jane, business has an important role to play in climate action by being a platform for change and an essential source of innovation.

“Business must drive and support the ‘ecopreneurial’ thinking our planet so desperately needs,” shared Jane. “Through innovation, education, and mobilisation, we will continue to thrive together, as a planet, as a species, as people.”

During the conversation, Marc revealed that Jane influenced him to focus on forests, and was the inspiration for the 1t.org platform to grow, restore and conserve one trillion trees. Jane also shared that her dream of empowering young people to take climate action inspired her to establish the community action programme Roots & Shoots. Today, the program’s participants include young people from kindergarten to university age in countries across the world. The participants in Roots & Shoots are empowered to help people, animals and the environment. These projects enable them to make impactful change and inspire others to do so too.

Watch ‘A New Day for the Environment’ — Net Zero keynote here.

ASEAN Business Spotlight: PETRONAS

Energy and utilities companies have a unique role to play in the transition to a clean and equitable energy future. 

With sustainability embedded in their business over the last two decades, PETRONAS has committed to achieving net zero by 2050. The company has embraced technology-driven innovation to help it become more agile and meet its sustainability goals. In partnership with Salesforce, it deployed PETRONAS360 to enable all partners, customers, and executives to access a single source of truth. This helped their teams to pivot, be agile, fail and recover quickly on their digital transformation journey.

Aadrin Azly, Chief Digital Officer, PETRONAS spoke about the company’s sustainability vision and its evolving partnership with Salesforce. According to Aadrin, PETRONAS began with a focus on nation-building and then international growth, but today it is increasingly focused on the transition to clean energy. 

“The energy transition has to happen in a fair, equitable and measured manner — so we focus not only on delivering clean energy, but also to those who need it the most and in an affordable way,” said Aadrin.

“Sustainability solutions, like carbon tracking and methane tracking are of interest to us. We’re also working with Salesforce to meet our target of deploying 90% of our applications on the cloud.”

In ‘The Energy & Utilities Future: Agile Energy Transition’ session, Azureen Azita Abdullah, Head of Downstream Digital & Innovation, at PETRONAS, shared how the Malaysian energy provider is making the transition to net zero. 

“Now we have a clear roadmap for energy transition, and we are escalating this whole ecosystem to our nation and hopefully catalysing it for the whole region,” said Azureen.

Sustainable Transformation is Everyone’s Job

While businesses have an important role to play in conserving the environment, they can also do this in a financially sustainable manner. In the very insightful discussion, ‘Sustainable to the Core‘, a global panel of thought leaders examined how organisations can embed sustainability into their business model. 

According to Kathy Varol, Purpose Strategy Expert and Consultant for CSR & ESG, businesses should realise they can’t have unlimited growth on a finite planet. Her advice to companies embarking on their sustainability journey was — “Identify a purpose for your company and use environmental, social, and governance as a framework to bring that purpose to life — holistically across the organisation with accountability, control and metrics.”

David Reynolds, CEO, Department for Trade and Investment, South Australia, shared how his state has pursued sustainability goals and facilitated the transition to renewable energy. This enabled the Department, a public sector organisation, to show private corporations that sustainability can be used for economic development and turned into a business advantage. Orlando Ferreira, CFO, IDB Invest shared his views on sustainability from a development banking perspective.

“Nine out of ten projects that fail do so not because of credit issues, but because ESG criteria were not put into place,” said Orlando. “Sustainability is not just the right thing to do, but the right thing for business itself.”

Paul Polman, Business Leader, former CEO of Unilever, and co-author of “Net Positive” concluded that sustainability is a story of hope. 

“There are the right demand signals from the market today, especially from Gen Z and the millennials on sustainability. But we need to move faster, and everyone has a place and role to play.”

Watch ‘Sustainable to the Core’ here.

Climate action, here and now

To empower businesses to take climate action, Salesforce introduced the first-of-its-kind Net Zero Marketplace at Dreamforce. The platform makes carbon credit purchases simple and transparent, allowing any organisation to accelerate climate positive impact at scale. ^{Attendees were able to offset their travel-related emissions to Dreamforce and learn more about the Net Zero Marketplace.}

Net Zero Marketplace, built on Commerce Cloud, connects buyers and ecopreneurs — environmentally-focused entrepreneurs who lead and drive climate action worldwide. 

It is this type of environmental focus and commitment that is driving Browzwear, a 3D apparel design company, to reduce waste in the fashion industry. Supported by Customer 360, Browzwear has scaled its operations to help more than 1000 fashion companies on their sustainability journey.

Dreamforce was a great opportunity for the Salesforce community to come together and be inspired by Trailblazers, thought leaders, environmental experts, and activists. It showed how each of us has a role to play in going net zero, and showcased tools and strategies to help us get there — together.

Watch all the Dreamforce episodes on Sustainability on-demand here.

Catch all the magic from Dreamforce 2022 on-demand on Salesforce+