Crafting a Comprehensive Net Zero Strategy

Situation

In the face of escalating climate concerns and market pressures, the importance of sustainable practices has never been more pronounced for businesses across the globe. As a value-added reseller and global solutions provider, WWT understands the challenges all too well, both from a client perspective and from operating our own business.

For WWT, embarking on a net zero journey was not just a matter of regulatory compliance or social responsibility, it was a strategic imperative to ensure our long-term viability and competitiveness in an evolving market.

With sustainability rapidly becoming a criterion for partner selection in the technology sector, failing to address our own carbon footprint could risk vendor relationships, market position and customer trust. Leadership understood how making progress on our commitment to net zero could enhance brand value, open doors to new growth opportunities, and underscore our dedication to making this organization a great place to work for all.

Challenge

WWT has committed to becoming net zero by 2050. And we recognize there are some daunting obstacles to realizing this goal.

For example, like many organizations, we didn't have a comprehensive understanding of our carbon footprint. In fact, our emission sources were scattered across a vast supply chain network of 79 facilities in 14 countries, and 99 percent of our emissions are associated with the technology products we buy and sell.

To make progress on our net zero commitment, leadership knew we needed to solidify a strategic plan of attack. So we looked inward and engaged our own ESG and supply chain experts for guidance on a way forward.

Solution 

To start addressing the challenges along our path to net zero, our expert consultants took several strategic actions:

• Microsoft Sustainability Manager integration: We leveraged the Microsoft Sustainability Manager (MSM) tool with custom models to consolidate data management into a single, transparent view.
• Supply chain engagement: We initiated dialogue with our top suppliers to standardize the estimation of product emissions, streamlining the carbon inventory process.
• Renewable energy exploration: We identified a range of renewable energy sources that could offer a strong return on investment if successfully harnessed.
• Science-based targets (SBTs): We helped define the SBTs we needed to meet as part of our net zero plan.

Business outcomes 

These strategic measures have already produced several noteworthy business outcomes:

1. The introduction of efficient data analysis, which automated data capturing via MSM, has eradicated many manual analyses and given business, ESG and supply chain leadership a single source of truth.
2. Our proactive supplier involvement has successfully refined the supplier engagement process, helping us tackle 99 percent of our emissions more effectively.
3. We've begun leveraging our renewable energy roadmap to introduce emission reduction efforts.
4. We've submitted our first SBT, a pivotal step in the path to achieving net zero.

Conclusion 

After looking in-house for strategic ESG and supply chain guidance, WWT is now equipped with a clear and actionable strategy to achieve net zero by 2050. This story underscores not only WWT's commitment to innovation and sustainable growth in the IT sector, but it demonstrates our ability to help other organizations establish and execute their own strategies for attaining their net zero commitments.