While sustainability informs several of Sage’s key new product issues announced at Transform, for the first time they also introduced sustainability initiatives for customers, which met with a positive reception and are likely to be expanded going forward.
Elisa Moscolin, Executive Vice President, Sustainability, at Sage
LAS VEGAS – At the Sage Transform event here, several key initiatives, including Copilot and Sage’s extended collaboration with AWS around Sage Earth, dealt with the broad theme of sustainability. However, Sage did more than this around sustainability at the event, which included providing resources for customers to improve their sustainability skills.
Elisa Moscolin, Executive Vice President, Sustainability, at Sage, said that ESG roles have evolved somewhat in recent years.
“CSR [Corporate Social Responsibility] used to be big in HR, where it was seen as a corporate engagement tool,” she said. “Now it has evolved. CSR is more commonly known as sustainability and as it has evolved, It has taken people like me out of the HR function to executive roles connected to business strategy. The issue becomes how do we get the customer on the journey to sustainability, where they can best protect and create value.”
One way of course is the new initiatives like Sage Copilot and Sage Earth.
“Automation is the key word,” Moscolin said. “You can’t ask an SMB executive to run the business, run finance, run accounting and also be the climate officer.”
Awareness of the importance of sustainability’s importance to organizations has also been enhanced by increased public awareness, scientific data, and regulatory pressures.
“This means that today, I spend way less time explaining “why is this important?” and more time discussing “how do we do this?” with the Board and the C-suite, which is a great step forward for all,” Moscolin stated.
Another strategy, rolled out for the first time at Transform, was sustainability clinics for customers.
“We talked about how we are bringing success at Transform this year,” she said. “We are offering to customers and any one here access to my team. We have created sustainability clinics, of one person to meet and discuss sustainability with them.
Moscolin said that this is the first year that these clinics have been available.
“We weren’t sure what the uptake would be, but we maxed out enrollment in two days,” she indicated. “We will likely expand that going forward. 83% of SMBs say that it is important.”
Moscolin stated that their sustainability strategy has three components.
“The first is climate, getting Sage Net Zero on emission,” she said. “We had reduced it to 16% in 2019, and our strategy is to get to half by 2030 and to zero by 2040.”
The second component is Tech for Good.
“This is how we get SMBs to net zero,’ Moscolin stated. “We acquired a carbon accounting software solution which we make available to them, although it is not free.”
Moscolin identified the third component to Sage meeting its role as a large employer.
“This is all about being human by design,” she said. “As one of the biggest technology employers in the UK, what we do matters.”
