The data from the Environmental Sustainability Dashboard can help businesses become aware—often for the first time—of their impact on the environment so that they can choose to implement environmentally sustainable business policies and practices. After these policies and practices are in place, businesses can use the dashboard to track and display their effects.
Environmental Sustainability Dashboard for Microsoft Dynamics AX
The Environmental Sustainability Dashboard is a cost-effective solution designed to help Microsoft Dynamics AX customers collect and assess data about their energy use and carbon footprint.
Monitor Energy Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Every business, from small to large, wants to use energy and resources wisely. Microsoft is developing the Environmental Sustainability Dashboard for Microsoft Dynamics AX to help businesses automatically collect the data they need so they can understand their environmental impact.
To facilitate environmental awareness, business processes such as accounts payable, inventory management, and expense management have been extended to include the automatic collection of relevant environmental data. This data is used to monitor energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
The data from the dashboard can help businesses become aware—often for the first time—of their impact on the environment so that they can choose to implement environmentally sustainable business policies and practices. After these policies and practices are in place, businesses can use the Environmental Sustainability Dashboard to track and display their effects.
Because the data is gathered and stored in the Microsoft Dynamics AX database, the information can be shared throughout an organization. The dashboard components are Microsoft SharePoint Web parts that can be propagated in Microsoft Dynamics AX Role Centers and on any Enterprise Portal site. This capability provides companies with a great deal of flexibility regarding who views environmental information.
Measure Reductions in Energy Use and Emissions
A study of 150 companies in March 2007 by AMR Research showed that businesses consider their most important environmental goals to be energy and emissions reduction.1
The Environmental Sustainability Dashboard will enable companies to track and report on four primary environmental performance indicators.2 These values measure:
- Direct energy consumption
- Indirect energy consumption
- Greenhouse gas emissions from the total energy consumption
- Green house gas emissions from standard business practices such as transportation, commuting, and business travel
The Environmental Sustainability Dashboard uses indicators based on the G3 guidelines from the Global Reporting Initiative, an internationally recognized organization formed to facilitate sustainability reports.
Energy Consumption Values
Direct energy consumption values reflect the environmental impact from both renewable and non-renewable sources of energy used onsite, such as natural gas, coal, or solar-powered climate control for a building.
Indirect energy consumption values measure energy that is generated by another party and purchased from that party (such as electricity purchased by a business from a utility company).
The Environmental Sustainability Dashboard alters the process used to pay an electric bill so that the amount of energy purchased is identified at the time of payment and does not require identification and analysis after the payment has been made.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions are determined using two basic methods. The first method of greenhouse gas emissions measurement takes into account the direct and indirect energy consumed by an organization, and then uses a conversion formula to determine environmental accountability of the fuels consumed.
The second method of greenhouse gas emissions measurement is a form of estimation. For example, a company might not know exactly how many gallons of gasoline its employees use to get to and from work. However, an estimate can be derived from information regarding the distance employees live from work, the average fuel consumption of their vehicles, and how many employees carpool or use public transportation. With this data, a company can obtain a reasonably accurate estimate of the carbon dioxide emissions emitted during employee commutes.
The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has published emissions data for combustion of many fuels including gasoline, coal, and natural gas. In addition, their Web site features technical and benefit analysis reports and tools.
Knowledge is Power
The value of the collected data comes not simply from numbers, but also from how an organization chooses to act on the information.
Because Microsoft Dynamics AX integrates Environmental Sustainability Dashboard data with business data, companies can make decisions that consider their environmental impacts. When businesses understand the resource consumption of business operations, managers can make fiscally sound decisions about the way their companies are run.
Environmental awareness is also important in relationships with business partners. For example, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is requiring suppliers in certain categories to disclose the energy efficiency of their companies and to improve the power efficiency of their products by 25 percent in the subsequent three years. Since Wal-Mart's announcement of this policy, many other companies have followed suit.
In order to achieve or maintain preferred supplier status, businesses can use the Environmental Sustainability Dashboard to more easily provide environmental data to business partners and to help forge solid business relationships.3
For a brief overview of steps to take for a more environmentally conscious supply chain, visit the Microsoft Midsize Business Center.
Environmentally Conscious Businesses Have a Competitive Edge
A business can gain a competitive marketing edge when it uses the data from the Environmental Sustainability Dashboard to demonstrate the beneficial effects of actions made by the company.
Just as more business partners prefer to have relationships with environmentally accountable suppliers, customers prefer to do business with companies that show positive environmental policies.
Furthermore, companies discover that initiating environmental programs creates positive influence on employee morale, and is also an attractive value for hiring new staff.4
Government regulators are also interested in seeing businesses adhere to good environmental practices. Businesses can provide data from the Environmental Sustainability Dashboard to agencies for compliance, tax credits, or other incentives where it is applicable.
Coming Soon: How to Implement Software for Insight into Environmental Issues
The Environmental Sustainability Dashboard represents Microsoft's commitment to developing technology that supports environmentally-sustainable business practices. Future versions of the dashboard will include further indicators from G3 guidelines with regard to social impact, performance, and more.
Microsoft is also working to create guidance for the applications its customers currently use as part of its Sure Step Implementation Methodology. This guidance will help partners and customers work together to consider how to implement their software in ways that provide greater clarity about environmental issues.
The first sets of G3 guidance are focused on Environmental Management Accounting (EMA), which can give companies greater insight into organizational resource flows in addition to associated environmental costs.
Rather than bury costs in overhead accounts where they are not directly attributable to a product line or process, costs are directly associated to the processes where they occur. Making the impact of costs more visible can help companies identify potential areas of improvement.
