Salesforce Climate Goals
How Salesforce approaches net zero: renewable energy, a $25M Frontier commitment to permanent carbon removal, and its Net Zero Cloud software.
Salesforce is one of the world's largest enterprise software companies, and it has made climate action a visible part of how it describes its business. Its approach combines emissions reductions, renewable energy, permanent carbon removal and software that helps customers track their own emissions.
Net zero residual emissions and renewable energy
Salesforce says it has achieved net zero residual emissions and 100% renewable energy for its operations. It uses the phrase "net zero residual emissions" for this outcome and reports that it obtained limited assurance on the claim from EY. The company also notes that guidance from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) says net zero requires about a 90% reduction in emissions, with what remains compensated through permanent carbon removal. Its first net zero commitment dates back to 2015.
Salesforce's carbon removal commitments
Carbon removal is one of the six priorities in Salesforce's Climate Action Plan, and the company has backed it with specific commitments:
- Frontier: in 2024, Salesforce committed $25 million to buy permanent carbon removal through Frontier, an advance market commitment to buy $1.8 billion of permanent removal by 2040. Frontier's team facilitates purchases from early-stage suppliers, focusing on solutions that store carbon for more than 1,000 years, have a path to affordability at scale and avoid competing for arable land. Read more in our Frontier explainer.
- First Movers Coalition: the Frontier purchase forms part of a 2022 pledge, made as a founding member of the coalition, to contract for $100 million of CO₂ removal by 2030.
- Symbiosis Coalition: Salesforce co-founded the coalition with Google, Meta and Microsoft, which together pledged to contract for up to 20 million tonnes of nature-based removal by 2030.
To understand how these purchases work, read our guides to carbon dioxide removal, carbon removal credits and nature-based removal.
Climate Action Plan: six priorities
Salesforce's plan is built around emissions reduction, carbon removal, trillion trees and ecosystem restoration, education and mobilisation, innovation, and regulation and policy. It presents the framework as one that other companies can adopt.
Clean energy and Net Zero Cloud
Salesforce signed a 15-year virtual power purchase agreement with Qualitas Energy in Italy, its first in Europe, supporting its renewable energy commitment. It also sells Net Zero Cloud, a product that helps organisations measure and manage their emissions.
What to watch
- "Net zero residual emissions" is Salesforce's own framing, so check how it relates to the standards you follow.
- Durable carbon removal is still small relative to global emissions, so delivery of contracted tonnes matters.
- See how other Frontier buyers compare in our profiles of Stripe, Shopify and Meta.
Sources
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