Accenture, Microsoft and Avanade have expanded their partnership to help organisations tackle horizontal and industry-specific sustainability challenges, to drive impact and deliver new value. 

The three firms will initially focus on delivering solutions that accelerate the transition to net zero. They then plan to expand their focus to broader environmental, social and governance challenges.

“Operating sustainably has become a source of competitive advantage, enabling organisations to increase efficiency, accelerate growth and lead with purpose,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Microsoft. “By combining our expertise with Accenture and Avanade, we have an opportunity and responsibility to deliver innovative solutions that will empower organisations to achieve their sustainability goals and drive lasting environmental change.”

The partnership will invest in the co-development of innovative solutions and offering advisory services to help businesses reduce carbon emissions, speed the transition to new energy sources, and eliminate waste of finite resources such as water, food and raw materials. It will do this by leveraging Accenture’s Sustainability Services, Avanade’s digital experience and the Microsoft Cloud, as well as each firm’s data and artificial intelligence capabilities. 

Specifically, the partnership will develop new joint offerings across four areas:

• Digital Manufacturing Transition – to help improve asset use and deploy business models that enable circularity
• Low Carbon Energy Transition – to help businesses transform customer offers and business models to support low-carbon energy experiences
• Sustainable IT with Microsoft Azure and Green Software Engineering – to provide organisations with energy-efficient infrastructure, and greater workload flexibility and business agility
• ESG Measurement, Analytics and Performance with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability – to offer sustainability intelligence for value chains by providing data-led insights that enable businesses to record, report and take action on sustainability metrics

“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, CEO of Accenture. “Our partnership with Microsoft and Avanade will help organisations find new value at the intersection of technology and sustainability to drive stronger performance and competitiveness, and make progress on their decarbonisation goals and their journey to net zero.”

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