How Versent and the cloud are helping make sustainable goals achievable

A Sustainability strategy used to be a ‘nice to have’ but as climate change becomes more difficult to deny, it has become a must-have for organisations around the world.

When you think of sustainability, often it’s aspects like waste and recycling, water usage and renewable energy sources that come to mind – not technology.

Microsoft Partner Versent is a born-in-the-cloud, customer-obsessed transformation consultancy – but they have another obsession: sustainability.

“No longer is environmental sustainability considered to be the responsibility of just a few industries – if our climate is to be protected, sustainable business is now seen as a global priority.” – Mahesh Aswani, Cloud Sustainability Architect, Versent

Going even greener – Versent’s sustainability suite

Now Versent has a specialised way to help its’ customers meet their sustainability goals – and Microsoft is a vital part of it.

Versent is utilising its’ extensive cloud expertise to help customers meet their sustainability targets through a new Green Brick Road sustainability offering: 

Green Brick Road is a 10 to 15-day strategic assessment that helps customers identify ICT savings in relation to technology architecture, people & processes that align with their sustainability targets. Using the identified savings, the Green Brick Road provides recommendations to customer’s on how they can obtain the proposed benefits.

Versent is working with Microsoft to assess how best to evolve the Green Brick Road to utilise the Microsoft Emissions Impact Dashboard and Microsoft Sustainability Manager – a new Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability solution that enables you to amplify progress and transform your business through environmental social, and governance capabilities. 

Versent is investigating comprehensive long-term solutions that aim to support customers in maintaining their sustainable practices by building sustainability into operations. The benefit of this approach is the holistic view, including reporting, improvements, recommendations and coaching.

By assisting clients to move to hyper-scale cloud technologies, Versent reports its’ customers are already saving up to 80% of their emissions due to hardware and facilities efficiency and renewables.

“We’re working with our clients to really understand what they need to achieve, what sort of constraints they have and build a strategy to get them there. Our tools measure our client’s technology landscape footprint and emissions, then we then use that real data to design a solution and show what a new emissions footprint might look like.” – Mahesh Aswani

Transforming good practice into good business

While Versent’s sustainability offering is new, supporting their clients in their sustainability journey is not.

Versent actively recognises their responsibility and opportunity to do good in the world. As a born-in-the-cloud organisation, social responsibility and sustainability have underpinned how Versent do business since they started operating in Melbourne in 2014. Their commitment to operating their business in sustainable and responsible ways includes the everyday practicalities like office waste management, to the highest levels, like supporting UN Sustainable Development Goals and working towards joining The Climate Pledge to achieve its future goal of net-zero carbon emissions.

Microsoft also has a laser focus on sustainability; with stated commitments to be carbon negative, zero waste and water positive by 2030, and world-leading efforts to work towards a more sustainable future.

Doing good can be good for business

Often decision makers only see the risk in these requirements and expectations, but opportunities abound. Often sustainability efforts result in savings – energy, emissions but also cost savings, increased operational efficiencies. Transparency around sustainability efforts can also be a solid reputational risk mitigation strategy – there are wins to be had in this space. It’s good for business, good for the planet and it’s great to be able to demonstrate how your organisation is addressing environmental challenges and meeting its sustainability goals.

In Australia, organisations are seeing sustainability accountability rise, including legislation like the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act and Carbon Tax, to the rising expectations of stakeholders and customers.

What’s next for Versent? The team is excited to be rolling out their sustainability offering to clients along with their other consultancy work, and continues to explore how ongoing operations can enable their clients long-term sustainability goals.

Mahesh notes that maintaining focus on their bigger goals is key. “We want to be seen as contributing to making a change with our clients. Our footprint is already minimal, but we want to be able look back and reflect that we’ve helped our clients with their sustainability targets and we’ve changed something.”

And the message to ICT leaders? Get started – you’ll be glad you did.

“Sustainable practices around ICT can make a difference. There are savings that can be made and there are practices that can be implemented. There’s no part of this to be fearful of the outcome as the outcome can only be positive.” – Tim Hope, Chief Technology Officer, Versent