Overview of Microsoft for Sustainability reference architectures

Microsoft for Sustainability is a comprehensive and extensible solution that helps organizations manage their sustainability efforts. It empowers organizations to accelerate sustainability progress and business growth by bringing together a set of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) capabilities. These capabilities come from across the Microsoft Cloud portfolio, plus solutions from Microsoft's global ecosystem of partners.

The solutions in Microsoft for Sustainability are scalable, reliable, and aligned with industry best practices. The reference architectures provide guidance on how system administrators, enterprise architects, and IT managers can collaborate and communicate effectively to implement Microsoft for Sustainability. The reference architectures also help reduce the risk of errors and oversights during the design and development process by providing a clear set of guidelines to follow.

Microsoft for Sustainability offers role-specific solutions for teams and individuals responsible for sustainability programs, and for every team member. These solutions are delivered on the Microsoft cloud, bringing the trust, security, privacy, and compliance that organizations expect. Key role specific solutions are as follows:

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• For Everyone: Copilot and AI are integrated into every solution component of Microsoft for Sustainability. This integration helps bring awareness, automation, and recommendations, driving faster decision-making to transform data, report and disclose, and unlock ESG data, turning insights into action.
• Data roles: For users tasked with managing ESG related data, Sustainability data solutions in Fabric, a set of sustainability specific extensions that come included as part of Microsoft Fabric licensing, provides key capabilities to centralize and unlock data insights.
• Sustainability & Finance roles: For Sustainability practitioners and finance teams managing the operations front, Microsoft Sustainability Manager provides core capabilities for managing their ESG program and progress. For small business users who use Microsoft Business Central as their ERP, a set of capabilities designed to simplify the process for emissions tracking, and a new capability for external reporting to generate disclosure reports in various standards such as CSRD, SASB, IFRS, BRSR, and more.
• IT roles: Finally, in helping to ensure more sustainable IT operations, Emissions Impact Dashboard, and Azure carbon optimization capabilities provide the emissions data generated by using the Microsoft Cloud. This data enables better decision making in using these cloud resources in a more efficient and sustainable way, ultimately reducing the emissions from IT operations.

The solutions in Microsoft for Sustainability are scalable, reliable, and aligned with industry's best practices. The reference architecture provides guidance on how system administrators, enterprise architects, and IT managers can collaborate and communicate effectively to implement Microsoft for Sustainability solutions. The reference architectures also help reduce the risk of errors and oversights during the design and development process by providing a clear set of guidelines to follow.

Download a printable PDF for this reference architecture diagram.

Detailed Architecture of Microsoft for Sustainability with key functionalities is as follows:

Download a printable PDF for this reference architecture diagram.

Microsoft for Sustainability offers a range of cloud-based solutions designed specifically for sustainability. This guide introduces each of those cloud solutions in detail:

Microsoft Sustainability Manager

Microsoft Sustainability Manager is a SaaS solution built on Power Platform that helps organizations record, report, and reduce their environmental impact across operations and the value chain in areas such as carbon, water, waste, and energy.

In carbon accounting, Sustainability Manager calculates the organization's carbon footprint and value chain emissions, including Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions across all Greenhouse Gas protocol categories. It supports detailed water data recording, analyzes the balance between water sources and usage, and caters to regulatory reporting needs.

It also helps manage and report on waste data by tracking the volume and specific properties of waste to ensure compliance with regulations. In addition, Sustainability Manager provides a range of tools to help companies set sustainability goals, track progress, and report on their sustainability performance. It offers real-time insights into emissions, water, and waste data, promoting reliable reporting and collaboration with AI and Copilot capabilities. Core functional capabilities offered by Sustainability Manager include:

• Activity data ingestion and ESG value chain
• Calculation module
• Aggregation and reporting insights on the outcome of emissions, water, and waste
• Goal management, and what-if analysis to track and forecast the emissions impact
• ESG disclosure reporting for various standards such as CSRD, ASRS, BRSR, GRI, IFRS 1 and 2, SASB, and more.

For more information about Sustainability Manager, see the Product documentation.