Introducing Enhanced ESG Data and Reporting Features in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability2/26/2024 Key Tools for CSRD Compliance Preparation
The evolution of Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability has been notable over the past year. With the anticipation of new Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting regulations, such as those from the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), we're unveiling advanced features designed to aid organizations in gathering and managing ESG data more effectively. Microsoft Sustainability Manager, a component of Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, is expanding to provide users with comprehensive insights into their environmental impact, covering aspects like carbon, water, and waste. These upgrades are tailored to help organizations develop an extensive ESG data estate and meet upcoming reporting mandates. Project ESG Lake: Accelerating Insight Acquisition In response to the increasing demands for adherence to ESG reporting standards and the growing appetite for generative AI-based solutions, entities globally are exploring innovative data application and analysis methods. The foundation for risk prediction and the management of sustainability issues lies in the integration of diverse data sources and services for a thorough analysis of sustainability, operational, and financial data. Organizations are reevaluating their data management strategies, embedding sustainability more deeply into their operations and business models. The initial step involves organizing the data estate—collecting, aggregating, standardizing, and analyzing data, and tracing it back to its origins to support auditing activities. We introduce Project ESG Lake, designed to enhance organizations' ability to manage and prepare their data for comprehensive analysis, propelling them toward their sustainability objectives. This solution provides an extensive ESG data model, including over 400 tables spanning various categories such as carbon, water, waste, social, governance, and biodiversity. It enables the creation of a centralized data estate, transforming data from across the organization into a standardized schema ready for advanced analytics and reporting. Empowering Organizations with Project ESG Lake Project ESG Lake enables the consolidation of ESG data from disparate systems, standardizing it according to the ESG data model for a centralized ESG data estate. Features include:
Preparing for regulatory compliance involves understanding compliance positions, tracking necessary actions, and documenting evidence for impending regulations. To facilitate this, targeted features and a series of prebuilt ESG reporting templates aligned with major ESG regulatory standards are being rolled out. Comprehensive Emissions Data Management Complete emissions impact accounting requires data collection and management for all emissions categories across operations and supply chains. The latest update to Microsoft Sustainability Manager introduces the final round of Scope 3 emissions calculation models, covering all 15 categories and enhancing organizations' ability to report comprehensively. Waste and Water Data Capabilities for Sustainability Progress New capabilities in waste and water data management are introduced to provide organizations with a unified view of their waste sustainability data and accelerate their water sustainability efforts. These include waste data ingestion, visualization, and sustainability disclosure in Microsoft Sustainability Manager, along with water revenue intensity calculation, water storage tracking, and goal-tracking for comprehensive sustainability management. Leveraging Microsoft Cloud for Accelerated Sustainability Efforts The Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability API now enables direct data lake export for Microsoft 365 and Azure emissions, streamlining analytics and reporting processes. This integration offers organizations the flexibility to connect their data with Microsoft and third-party BI tools, enhancing their sustainability journey. Engaging with the Sustainability Community and Exploring Partner Solutions Stay informed and engaged with the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability community portal and explore partner solutions tailored to unique ESG data management needs on Microsoft AppSource, facilitating a more sustainable future.
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Walgreens, a leading pharmacy chain, has revolutionized its prescription processing across its extensive network of nearly 9,000 stores by harnessing the power of Azure resources. Annually, the company handles hundreds of millions of prescription dispenses, each accompanied by numerous data points. By leveraging Microsoft Azure Databricks, Azure Synapse Analytics, and additional Azure services, Walgreens has developed an intelligent data platform capable of swiftly analyzing prescription data to generate actionable insights in minutes. This innovation benefits not only pharmacists at the customer interface but also the operational and analytics teams company-wide, offering immediate access to detailed transactional data and insights.
Streamlining Prescription Processing with Azure Sashi Venkatesan, Director of Product Engineering for Pharmacy and Healthcare Data Product Line at Walgreens, highlights the transformative impact of Azure resources on data processing and insight generation. The advanced data engineering pipelines facilitate real-time data analysis, enabling pharmacists and technicians to access critical insights rapidly. Navigating the Prescription Dispense Ecosystem The complexity behind each prescription transaction involves numerous stakeholders, including doctors, pharmacists, insurers, and patients. Walgreens' scale, with about 818 million prescriptions filled during the 2020 fiscal year, underscores the need for a robust infrastructure to manage this intricate process efficiently. Towards a Future-Proof Infrastructure Walgreens' commitment to enhancing customer service and operational reliability led to a collaboration with Microsoft. The goal was to future-proof its infrastructure with a cloud-first strategy and modern AI capabilities, thus ensuring scalability and agility in processing meaningful data points and translating them into actionable insights. Empowering Pharmacists with Intelligent Data The move towards a unified, intelligent data platform aimed to simplify innovation and adaptability in response to changing customer behaviors. Luigi Guadagno, Vice President of Pharmacy and Healthcare Platform Technology at Walgreens, emphasizes the platform's role in supporting pharmacists with critical patient information, thereby enhancing healthcare outcomes. An Intelligent, Connected Data Platform The Information, Data, and Insights (IDI) platform, developed in partnership with Microsoft Consulting Services and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), adopts an event-based microservices architecture. It efficiently processes key prescription and pharmacy inventory data, delivering real-time insights to pharmacists through user-friendly dashboards and data visualizations in Power BI. Achieving Operational Excellence with Azure The platform's capability to handle around 40,000 transactions per second during peak times, thanks to Azure Databricks' scalability, marks a significant improvement over the previous system. The integration of Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure SQL Database, and Azure Cosmos DB ensures that data from prescription dispenses is rapidly available to Walgreens' data warehouse, enhancing response times. Enhancing Patient Care and Engagement The advanced data engineering pipelines powered by Azure have fundamentally improved how pharmacists serve patients, offering clear and concise insights that enable better patient care. This technological advancement has also positively impacted customer experiences, highlighting the value of an agile technology platform in today’s evolving retail and healthcare landscape. Conclusion: A Model for Future Growth Walgreens' successful deployment of an Azure-powered data platform sets a precedent for leveraging ERP and Azure resources in the healthcare industry. It demonstrates the potential for technology to not only streamline operational processes but also significantly improve patient engagement and care outcomes. This collaboration between Walgreens, Microsoft, and TCS exemplifies the power of digital transformation in facilitating growth and enhancing service delivery in the healthcare sector.
Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability: Accelerate Your Eco-Friendly Progress with Advanced Features2/7/2024 Celebrating Earth Month with Innovative UpdatesAs Earth Month unfolds, in light of the latest recommendations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to accelerate the journey towards net-zero emissions, we're excited to unveil the latest enhancements to the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability. These updates bring forward superior analytics, including Scope 3 waste data, elevated data access, and management capabilities, enriched reporting, and personalized adjustments. These tools are designed to assist entities in achieving their ecological objectives more swiftly and efficiently, paving the way for enhanced ERP data management practices within the realm of sustainability.
Enrich Analytics with Customizable DimensionsOrganizations are now empowered to introduce personalized dimensions to data model entities within Microsoft Sustainability Manager, enhancing the precision of calculations and analyses. This allows for the correlation of activity or emissions data with additional contextual information, such as emissions per employee count, offering a refined perspective on ERP data management within environmental sustainability efforts. Following the ingestion, mapping, and computation of data with these custom dimensions, it becomes possible to generate detailed insights into manufacturing intensities across various domains. A visualization example includes a dashboard displaying laptop manufacturing emissions data, categorized by assembly line, model, and SKU, illustrating the integration of ERP data management with sustainability analytics. Propel Forward with Data Approval ManagementParticularly beneficial for well-established organizations that maintain rigorous data management workflows, the newly introduced data approval management feature facilitates the staging of data in a pending status. This allows for the storage of data without affecting the ongoing calculations, analyses, and reporting processes. Upon receiving approval from authorized personnel, this data is then seamlessly integrated into all relevant operations, marking a significant step forward in ERP data management and sustainability tracking. Access Microsoft 365 Emissions Data with EaseOrganizations can now effortlessly access emissions data related to their Microsoft 365 service usage, encompassing a range of applications including Exchange Online, Outlook, SharePoint, and more, via the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability API. This API employs a third-party validated emissions calculation methodology, encompassing all three emissions scopes as outlined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, thereby enhancing ERP data management capabilities with respect to sustainability metrics. Streamline Disclosure Preparations with Reporting EnhancementsIn anticipation of emerging disclosure regulations, the Sustainability Manager now features customizable reporting capabilities. Organizations can craft reports incorporating various types of sustainability data, such as emissions alongside Scope 1, 2, and 3 activity data, significantly reducing the complexity and volume of reports needed for disclosure preparations. Custom Views for Emissions AnalysisThe allocations dashboard introduces a flexible method for organizations to monitor their emissions generation, allowing for assessments based on headcount, area, production type, or any defined method. This empowers entities to understand the impact of different internal metrics on their overall emissions, integrating ERP data management with sustainability efforts. Advanced Scope 2 Emissions TrackingImprovements in accounting for Scope 2 emissions are now available, thanks to an additional calculation methodology and enhanced insights and reporting features. These advancements facilitate comprehensive tracking and reporting of both market- and location-based Scope 2 emissions data, reinforcing the role of ERP data management in environmental sustainability. Simplify Scope 2 Energy Data IngestionThe Data Capture feature leverages AI Builder to streamline the ingestion process for purchased energy invoices. By training a custom optical character recognition model, organizations can efficiently process invoices as Scope 2 activity data, further blending ERP data management with sustainability initiatives. Import Data from Various Sources with Guided ExperienceEnhanced data processing capabilities allow for quicker and more efficient importation of data from multiple sources. With the introduction of Excel templates, a Power Query guided flow, and partner solutions, users have the flexibility to choose the most suitable method for their data ingestion needs, optimizing ERP data management processes for sustainability tracking. Enhancing Environmental Credit ProcessesThe Environmental Credit Service introduces new features to clarify and expedite the validation of environmental claims, promoting transparency and scalability in environmental market ecosystems. This service is a testament to the integration of ERP data management with sustainable market practices. Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability's Waste Data ModelThe newly developed waste data model offers a comprehensive view of waste management data, aiding organizations in their pursuit of waste reduction and the promotion of a circular economy. This innovation marks a significant advancement in combining ERP data management with sustainability efforts. As we continue to enhance our offerings, the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability is poised to empower organizations in their journey towards a more sustainable future, integrating ERP data management with comprehensive environmental sustainability efforts. |
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