Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability Previews AI Capabilities; ESG Data Management Enhancements; MSP Partnership

Microsoft, as expected, today unveiled multiple Cloud for Sustainability updates and code previews -- including AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities that involve Copilot in Microsoft Sustainability Manager.

Shefy Manayil Kareen (pictured above), general manager for Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, described the software updates in a blog. A separate blog described how Kyndryl -- the global managed IT service provider (MSP) -- is partnering with Microsoft to "activate sustainability solutions."

Related: Track Microsoft's overall sustainability strategy here.

Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability: New Capabilities to Note

On the code front, Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric (preview) allows users to "analyze your organization’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data together with your other enterprise data to inform more holistic decisions and better-targeted outcomes," Kareen wrote.

Among the related tools and capabilities in preview, Kareen mentioned:

1. ESG data estate (preview) "helps you centralize and standardize ESG data from your disparate data sources to compute, analyze, and disclose ESG metrics for various regulatory reporting and analytics requirements."  
2. Microsoft Azure emissions insights (preview) "enables you to report and analyze your Microsoft Azure usage–related emissions data at subscription and resource levels." 
3. Environmental metrics and analytics (preview) "helps you generate custom reports, metrics, and analytics insights across carbon, water, and waste by connecting to your data in Microsoft Sustainability Manager."  
4. Social and governance metrics and reports (preview) "provide insights, dashboards, and metrics to support your needs across various sustainability directives." 

Also of note: Copilot in Microsoft Sustainability Manager, now in preview, allows users to gain insights baed on natural language queries, Kareen wrote.

In terms of general availability, Microsoft released water and waste sustainability data capabilities. Microsoft had previewed those capabilities starting in March 2023.

Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability: Partnerships, Key Rivals

In a separate blog, Microsoft Senior Director Michelle Lancaster and Kyndryl Global Sustainability and ESG Officer Faith Taylor explained how the two companies are partnering to deliver sustainability solutions.

Kyndryl is the managed infrastructure provider and multi-cloud MSP that spun off from IBM in November 2021.

Meanwhile, has announced multiple sustainability partnerships since early 2023. Key moves include:

• "Extended collaboration" with Ecolab "aims to help organizations accelerate their sustainability progress with enhanced visibility of water consumption data," Kareen wrote in March 2023.
• e& launched sustainability as a service built atop Microsoft's cloud.
• Microsoft described multiple IT consulting firms, independent software vendors (ISVs) and advisory firms that are assigning customer journeys to net-zero goals.

Nevertheless, Microsoft faces competition on the sustainability cloud front. Traditional rivals such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud are ramping up their sustainability partnerships.

Looking ahead, it’s safe to expect more sustainability partner news at the Microsoft Inspire 2024 conference -- which is expected to be held in July.