ISDI is going green: the Net Zero Cloud service as a key part of our transformation

How can companies undertake the transformation we expect of them whilst remaining, all the while, sustainable? To do this, businesses must listen to others, open their eyes wider than ever and take the right measures.

As for ISDI our transformation – a technological and green transition – hinges on an action plan which is based on data-processing. After taking some time to measure their impact businesses must then demand and seamlessly instil changes in their company culture, highlighting that environmental awareness is not an option, it is not just another interesting struggle to be a part of. Sustainability is a must-have objective for any business transformation plan and it is something we must all work towards, dynamically, both as individuals and hand in hand with our colleagues and partners.

Sustainability in business: a commitment to society

Jorge Villabona, Managing Director of ISDI CRM Worldwide, has recently discussed this transformation which the whole group has got on board with and which impacts all of its activities. This environmental vision is included in both the business plan and the academic project, overlapping with the commitments of the foundation and of our corporate social responsibility efforts in the business environment as well as initiatives led for/with ISDI’s students.

For over a decade ISDI has been working to unearth talent and help companies, individuals and society as a whole to innovate, to scale up and to adopt the skills, the mentality and the values required to succeed with a digital transformation plan. The school adopts both an individual and collective approach to learning faced with a context where huge social inequalities must be overcome and where the impact that human beings are having on the climate has led to an environmental emergency that now requires urgent action.

Fabián Gradolph, Corporate Communications Senior Manager for Salesforce Iberia, outlined his backing for this approach. A successful digital transition for companies will be closely linked to their level of sustainability and the overall impact they have on the environment. Measuring this impact and setting objectives are the first steps in this transformation. You also need to convince stakeholders and set up strategic partnerships, like the one which exists between Salesforce and ISDI, with the important support of Accenture, in order to measure and reduce the environmental impact of our school.

From sustainability document to transformation plan

Jorge Villabona discussed a key moment in this process: the deploying of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) back in 2015. The SDGs called upon companies to take action and to start a transition, leading ISDI to transform its pre-existing social approach into a series of measurable objectives in the field of education, of course, but also with regards to equality, sustainability and the fight against climate change. Villabona added, “as regards the companies we work with, this allowed us to create a sustainability plan that is not just compatible with our commercial goals but which also helps to make our company more attractive and strengthens its impact”.

The first step for ISDI was to measure the carbon footprint of its centres and to put together a plan to reduce and to compensate for its emissions.

This was done thanks to the support of the specialists at BeZero and with the use of Salesforce’s Net Zero Cloud application, helping to bring ISDI’s annual footprint down from 27 tons of CO₂ to just 8 tons.

Thanks to the Salesforce Net Zero Cloud service and the work done alongside both Salesforce and Accenture, ISDI’s objective is to raise awareness thanks to our strict Corporate Social Responsibility policy. At the Digital Acceleration Centre (CAD) launched in Paris in early 2021, we can clearly see the result of this strategic partnership. The centre clearly embodies a desire to adopt more sustainable business practices, making the most of the move to the new hybrid model of remote work/on-site events and rebuilding the social ties between the employees of the centre and its visitors.

The Salesforce Net Zero Cloud application: deployment, capacity and timeframes

The Salesforce Net Zero Cloud application allows you to supervise, analyse and quickly communicate reliable environmental data. Accenture helped us to integrate the platform into our strategy, our operational model and our IT set-up at our training centres. This data-processing allows us to have a detailed vision of the sources of our energy consumption, to take action in order to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and to monitor our quarterly sustainability objectives.

The Net Zero Cloud platform improves the experience for our customers and raises awareness amongst our visitors about the importance of sustainability: every visitor can use the app to calculate the carbon footprint of their visit and can look at the overall footprint of the ISDI centre. Visitors can also look at their options to immediately compensate for their emissions – they are invited to get involved in a reforestation project with Reforest’Action in order to grow the carbon sinks of the future.

Whilst the average for other applications is 6 months, the Net Zero Cloud application provides detailed data on the current initiatives and the overall level of sustainability of an organisation within 6 weeks. Micaël Debast, Salesforce business group lead for Accenture, provided us with his view: “we have been delighted to work hand in hand with ISDI and Salesforce to integrate the Net Zero Cloud platform and to contribute towards the efforts made to achieve the SDGs. We remain convinced that all companies must see sustainable development as one of their main priorities”.

As Jorge Villabona put it, “Accenture, with their agile project management method, and Salesforce, have helped us to develop the environmental strategy for our new training centre in Paris, reflecting our commitment to adopting more sustainable business practices. This solution complements the other measures we have taken well – such as choosing an electricity provider that is 100% green, our method of recycling, our zero plastic approach and our use of certified green products – and it will soon become a model for our training centres across the globe”.

Sustainability in business: a commercial strategy

The interview with Jorge Villabona and Fabián Gradolph ended on a key question: how to convince businesses that their digital transformation must involve a strategy for sustainable transformation? Villabona outlined, first and foremost, that such change is necessary because the situation “was not good and there’s also a funnel effect: several studies have shown that the image improvement thanks to values related to sustainability has an impact on customers choosing the company’s products and services as opposed to those of the competition”.

He added that, despite people still holding on to the old way of doing things, which he describes as “sustainability as an act of faith”, measuring sustainability on profit and loss accounts is becoming an increasingly exact science. The impact that going green has on our students and on partner companies is very positive. We must communicate about these values as they create loyalty amongst our increasingly well-informed customers. Furthermore, both public and private tendering processes are focusing more and more on this aspect and they take into account the B-Corp label which is similar to ISO but which focuses on sustainability.

Joint work and shared strategies, as seen with the partnership between ISDI and Salesforce, with the support of Accenture, using a platform like Net Zero Cloud, help create new capacity to monitor, analyse and communicate about environmental data in order to reduce carbon emissions and boost sustainability. Adopting such tools and making a similar commitment will ensure you have both a positive environmental impact as well as boosting your corporate project – or the academic project in the case of ISDI – making your organisation seen as an important social player and securing the loyalty of your customers.

Patrick Flynn, Vice President for Sustainability at Salesforce, summed it up perfectly: “we know that we need to innovate and to take immediate measures to tackle climate change if we want to save the planet. This is the premise for why we are opting for climate leadership solutions which will create a domino effect. We are pushing for urgent action and we hope you’ll join us on this adventure”.

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