Accenture, Microsoft and Avanade Expand Partnership to Help Organizations Tackle Their Greatest Sustainability Challenges
June 02 2022 - 7:59AM
Business Wire
Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and Microsoft, together with their joint
venture Avanade, are joining forces to tackle climate change, one
of the most critical and urgent challenges for both businesses and
people. With an immediate emphasis on delivering solutions to help
organizations transform their operations, products, services and
value chains to help accelerate the transition to net zero, the
three companies will expand their focus to broader environmental,
social and governance (ESG) challenges in the future.
The companies are investing in the co-development of innovative
solutions — architected and designed at the onset to emit less
carbon over their life cycle — and offering advisory services to
help businesses
reduce carbon emissions, speed the transition to new energy
sources, and shrink or even eliminate waste of finite resources
such as water, food and raw materials.
With the powerful combination of Accenture Sustainability
Services, Avanade’s human-centered digital experience, the
Microsoft Cloud and each company’s robust data and artificial
intelligence (AI) capabilities, the expanded strategic partnership
will address both horizontal and industry-specific sustainability
challenges to help drive impact and deliver new value.
“Increasingly, as all stakeholders look to business to move from
commitment to action on environmental challenges, companies that
embed sustainability across their enterprises can become a powerful
force for change,” said Julie Sweet, chair and chief executive
officer of Accenture. “Our partnership with Microsoft and Avanade
will help organizations find new value at the intersection of
technology and sustainability – from embracing green software
development principles and sustainable cloud migrations, to digital
twin technology adoption – to drive stronger performance and
competitiveness, and make progress on their decarbonization goals
and their journey to net zero.”
“Operating sustainably has become a source of competitive
advantage, enabling organizations to increase efficiency,
accelerate growth and lead with purpose,” said Judson Althoff,
executive vice president and chief commercial officer, Microsoft.
“By combining our expertise with Accenture and Avanade, we have an
opportunity and responsibility to deliver innovative solutions that
will empower organizations to achieve their sustainability goals
and drive lasting environmental change.”
Through the expanded strategic partnership, the companies will
collaborate to extend existing capabilities and develop new joint
offerings across four areas:
- Digital Manufacturing Transition – Manufacturing
organizations need to rapidly establish and scale the digital
foundation of individual production sites and factory networks.
Joint offerings will help improve asset utilization and deploy
business models that enable circularity. They will also apply
digital twin technology to help reduce emissions, waste, the
consumption of materials, water and other resources in production
and operations, and improve transparency across the value chain. An
Accenture and UN Global Compact study found that globally, 44% of
CEOs say that digital twins will make a significant impact on
sustainability in their industry over the next five years
- Low Carbon Energy Transition – Seventy-three percent of
CEOs told Accenture and UN Global Compact that they feel increased
pressure to act on sustainability over the next three years. To do
so, businesses need to transform operations across the energy value
chain. Joint offerings will help companies in the transition to a
net zero economy by connecting and integrating energy
infrastructure to develop carbon intelligence, and transform
customer offers and business models that can support low carbon
energy experiences.
- Sustainable IT with Microsoft Azure and Green Software
Engineering – Organizations are seeking energy-efficient
infrastructure along with greater workload flexibility and business
agility. Accenture research shows that shifting from on-premise
data centers to the public cloud can reduce an enterprise’s energy
usage by 65% and cut carbon emissions by more than 84%. New
solutions on Microsoft Azure span strategy development and
assessment of current IT infrastructure; architecting and piloting
solutions; a carbon aware approach to migration and green software
engineering; and continuous improvement and business transformation
with low carbon cloud as its foundation.
- ESG Measurement, Analytics and Performance with Microsoft
Cloud for Sustainability – Facing increasing regulatory and
stakeholder demands, organizations need insights at their
fingertips to innovate and embed sustainability into the design of
new products and services. Joint solutions will focus on providing
sustainability intelligence for value chains by helping to break
siloes and provide data-led insights so clients can not only record
and report sustainability metrics, but — even more importantly —
take action. Companies that consistently demonstrate high ESG
performance score 2.6x higher on total shareholder return than
counterparts, according to Accenture research.
“The world is at an inflection point where organizations are
expected to play an active role in addressing sustainability
issues,” said Pam Maynard, chief executive officer, Avanade. “Now
more than ever, technology is key to accelerating environmental,
social and governance goals and enabling organizations to be
sustainable through continual change. We’re excited about the
opportunity to help leaders leverage the power of people and
technology to take practical sustainability actions that make a
genuine human impact.”
Josh Matthews, industry analyst from HFS Research, added,
“Sustainability technologies and services need ecosystems of
partners to refine and scale solutions. They must quickly set the
benchmark for others to follow given how far behind most
organizations, industries, and governments are in aligning under
the global sustainability context of decarbonization and addressing
all 17 UN Goals. Ecosystem collaborations, like this one between
Accenture, Microsoft and Avanade, will not only help to refine and
scale solutions, but also help to solve the data and transparency
challenges which organizations frequently cite to us as major
barriers to their sustainability journeys.”
This expanded strategic partnership builds on Accenture,
Microsoft and Avanade’s current joint sustainability efforts,
including their pioneering role in the Green Software Foundation, a
non-profit that is building a trusted ecosystem of people,
standards, tooling and practices for green software development.
Through a joint initiative called Project Amplify, Accenture and
Microsoft have also supported dozens of start-ups focused on social
impact and sustainability by providing access to emerging
technology and expertise to help scale their solutions.
About Accenture Accenture is a global professional
services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and
security. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills
across more than 40 industries, we offer Strategy and Consulting,
Technology and Operations services and Accenture Song — all powered
by the world’s largest network of Advanced Technology and
Intelligent Operations centers. Our 699,000 people deliver on the
promise of technology and human ingenuity every day, serving
clients in more than 120 countries. We embrace the power of change
to create value and shared success for our clients, people,
shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at
accenture.com.
About Microsoft Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft)
enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud
and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and
every organization on the planet to achieve more.
About Avanade Avanade is the leading provider of
innovative digital, cloud and advisory services, industry solutions
and design-led experiences across the Microsoft ecosystem. Every
day, our 56,000 professionals in 26 countries make a genuine human
impact for our clients, their employees and their customers. We
have been recognized as Microsoft’s Global SI Partner of the Year
more than any other company. With the most Microsoft certifications
(60,000+) and 18 (out of 18) Gold-level Microsoft competencies, we
are uniquely positioned to help businesses grow and solve their
toughest challenges. We are a people first company, committed to
providing an inclusive workplace where employees feel comfortable
being their authentic selves. As a responsible business, we are
building a sustainable world and helping young people from
underrepresented communities fulfill their potential.
Majority owned by Accenture, Avanade was founded in 2000 by
Accenture LLP and Microsoft Corporation. Learn more at
http://www.avanade.com/.
Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved. Accenture and
its logo are trademarks of Accenture.
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Hannah Unkefer Accenture +1 206 839 2172
hannah.m.unkefer@accenture.com
Alexander Aizenberg Accenture +1 917 452 9878
alexander.aizenberg@accenture.com
Microsoft Media Relations WE Communications for Microsoft +1 425
638 7777 rapidresponse@we-worldwide.com
Claire Booty Avanade +447930760031 Claire.booty@avanade.com
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