The document provides an overview of licensing options for Microsoft Sustainability Manager, which is licensed and on tenant + user subscription basis. It includes standard provisions, product-specific provisions, plan options, frequently asked questions, and more.

This licensing guidance applies to Microsoft Sustainability Manager Essentials and Microsoft Sustainability Manager Premium.

Note: This section describes the licensing model and standard provisions for the applicable products, including the core licensing requirements and benefits associated with that model. Review the subsequent sections for provisions that are unique to the applicable products.

Licensing Microsoft Sustainability Manager (MSM) requires two license types:

1. A Tenant Subscription License
2. A User Subscription License for every user account that accesses the solution

A tenant Subscription License enables you to provide the product or service to all licensed users within your tenant. You can deploy any number of instances of the product, including to multiple environment types (for example developer, sandbox, and production) within a single tenant.

You can license access to the applicable products on a User Subscription Basis. Assign a separate User Subscription License to each user account that accesses or benefits from the product. [View related Product Terms]  

If the product license includes access to any cloud-based applications, the user may access the applications from any device using the login credentials for their licensed account.

Any device-based provisions included with the User Subscription License—such as protecting, managing, or installing desktop client apps on the user’s devices—may be applied to the licensed user’s personal devices or devices provided by your organization. Such provisions are typically limited to five devices.

You must appropriately license the use of a product regardless of technical enforcement. Some products check for a license before granting access or allow you to restrict access to licensed users via your admin portal. Others may not enforce this yet but could in the future. Ensure you are properly licensed regardless of what technical enforcement is currently available. For products that are enabled for all users by default and lack the ability to restrict access, license every user you intend to benefit from the product. 

You must properly license any user or device that directly or indirectly accesses, uses, or otherwise benefits from a product. Using hardware or software to pool connections, reroute or indirectly access information, and/or reduce the number of devices or users that directly access or use a product reduce the number of users or devices accessing or being managed by the product (often referred to as “multiplexing”) does not reduce the number of licenses you need. For additional information, refer to the Microsoft Multiplexing Overview. [View related Product Terms]

You can reassign a User Subscription License, but not within 90 days of its last assignment unless the user is absent (for example has left your organization or is on leave). Likewise, you can reassign a Device Subscription License, but not within 90 days of its last assignment unless the device is unavailable (for example, it’s been taken out of service or is under repair). If you reassign a Subscription License within 90 days of the last assignment for any other reason, that reassignment must be for the remaining duration of the subscription term. When reassigning, block access and remove related software from the previous device or user's device(s). [View related Product Terms] 

All licenses permit you to run the software on servers dedicated to your organization’s use and provide access to your licensed users or from your licensed devices. This includes dedicated servers in your own datacenter or hosted by an Authorized Outsourcer. (An Authorized Outsourcer is any outsourcer that is not a Listed Provider or using a Listed Provider as a datacenter provider.) With the Flexible Virtualization Benefit provided by subscription licenses and licenses with active Software Assurance, you can also run and access the software hosted on an Authorized Outsourcer’s shared servers. [View related Product Terms]

You’ll find more information in the Outsourcing Software Management and Flexible Virtualization Benefit licensing guidance.

All the typical provisions described in the Licensing model section above apply to Microsoft Sustainability Manager. The additional provisions below also apply.

User Subscription Licenses for Microsoft Sustainability Manager are free of charge. You use them to control who can access to the product and use any consumption- or capacity-based features.

Microsoft Sustainability Manager licenses allow your licensed users to use Power Apps and Power Automate in the context of Microsoft Sustainability Manager.

With Microsoft Sustainability Manager, you received the following tenant-level Dataverse storage allotments:

Be sure to monitor your Dataverse capacity, especially if you deploy Microsoft Sustainability Manger to multiple environments. You have options when you're running low on Dataverse storage capacity. You can free up storage, delete unwanted environments, or buy more storage capacity to be compliant with storage usage requirements.

With Microsoft Sustainability Manager Premium, your tenant receives 25,000 AI Builder credits to support Intelligent invoice scanning.

Fabrikam Inc. is a mid-sized manufacturing company focused on sustainability and reducing its environmental impact. They have a dedicated sustainability team of five employees who will use Microsoft Sustainability Manager to track and manage their sustainability initiatives. Fabrikam's sustainability team needs advanced features such as intelligent invoice scanning and what-if analysis to optimize their sustainability initiatives. They also require extensive customization and AI-driven insights.

Fabrikam Inc. will need to license the tenant, so they purchase one Microsoft Sustainability Manager Premium Tenant Subscription License.

Additionally, each member of the sustainability team will need to be licensed for access, so they acquire five no-cost Microsoft Sustainability Manager Premium User Subscription Licenses.

Certain Microsoft Sustainability Manager features depend on other Microsoft products. The known existing dependencies are listed below:

Microsoft Sustainability Manager Essentials provides basic features for sustainability reporting and management, including data ingestion, Power BI dashboards, goals, collaboration via Teams, and audit and traceability.

Microsoft Sustainability Manager Premium includes all the features of the Essentials plan, plus additional capabilities such as ESG value chain solution, what-if analysis, advanced scope 3 calculations, carbon fee management, and more.

See Microsoft Sustainability Manager plans for more information.

You can subscribe to Microsoft Sustainability Manager Essentials and Premium plans on a standalone subscription basis.

You have multiple options for where you buy subscription licenses, including:

• From a Microsoft partner
• From Microsoft Sales

To learn more about these options, refer to the How to Buy guide. 

Is there a Step-up Tenant Subscription License available for moving from Essentials to Premium mid-term?

Yes. There is a Step-up from Microsoft Sustainability Manager Essentials to Premium tenant licenses available for EA customers. Note that if you already had Microsoft Sustainability Manager licensing prior to November 1, 2024, these licenses have been rebranded as Microsoft Sustainability Manager Essentials. Learn more about switching from Essentials to Premium.

Is there a Step-up User Subscription License option?

No. There are no Step-up your User Subscription Licenses when moving from Essentials to Premium mid-term as the User Subscription Licenses are free of charge. You can continue to use your Essentials User Subscription Licenses with a Microsoft Sustainability Manager Premium tenant license. When needed, you can upgrade users to MSM Premium mid-term, as the MSM User Subscription Licenses are free of charge.