Microsoft Sustainability Manager is set to gain AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities that will allow users to "perform deeper analysis on their emissions data."
Microsoft Sustainability Manager is part of a larger Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability effort. The AI enhancements, known as Intelligent insights, are available now as a software preview, according to Shefy Manayil Kareem, general manager, Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability (pictured, top of page). Kareem disclosed the AI technology preview in an expansive blog.
The Intelligent Insights capabilities organizes analytics into three categories: Outliers, Trends and Correlations. Users can identify missing data, highlight relationships between facilities, make data-driven business decisions, and more, Kareem asserted.
The Intelligent Insights are generated monthly, and can be scheduled by an admin within Microsoft Sustainability Manager, he added.
Microsoft Sustainability Manager: Essentials or Premium?
The SaaS application is available in two different packages. Kareem explains them this way:
- Essentials includes all the features available in general availability. Essentials capabilities help organizations build a solid foundation for managing their environmental sustainability data and preparing for sustainability reporting.
- Premium includes all the benefits of Essentials plus expanded capabilities in key areas such as value chain management, allocations, and AI, along with more data storage. Premium is designed for organizations that are looking to solve more complex reporting and reduction challenges and need to report across all the environmental categories while delivering insights for reduction.
Partner Integrations, New Capabilities
Microsoft has regularly updated Sustainability Manager with new features, capabilities and partner integrations in 2023. Noteworthy updates included...
- November 2023 - Carbon Cost Software Preview: The feature allows organizations to set an internal price (or a “tax”) on their own carbon emissions and encourage substantive reductions.
- May 2023 - Partner Connectors: In an a detailed blog explaining multiple partner integrations, Kareem described relationships with Arcadia for energy data, Seeq analytics software for process manufacturers, Johnson Controls OpenBlue Enterprise Management for physical buildings, Cognite Data Fusion for asset-heavy industries, and Mesa Impact for corporate sustainability management.
- April 2023 - Industrial IoT Partner: Seeq Corporation, a developer of industrial internet of things advanced analytics software, announced a solution that “enables sustainability teams to extend the power of Microsoft Sustainability Manager… to integrate time series process data preparation, analysis, and continuous improvement, reducing the environmental impact of process industry operations,” the company said.
- April 2023 - Customer Adoption: The BBC (British Broadcasting Company) embraced Microsoft Sustainability Manager to help manage carbon emissions and overall sustainability performance, according to Danielle Mulder, the BBC’s group director for sustainability, the software company reported.
Related: See Microsoft's overall sustainability strategy outlined here.
