What Salesforce’s Scope 3 Emissions Reveal About Enterprise Sustainability

Sustainability used to be measured by the things companies could control directly, such as office energy use, business travel, and data center efficiency. For enterprise software companies, that picture has changed dramatically.

Today, the majority of emissions often come from outside the organization itself, generated across cloud providers, suppliers, software vendors, AI infrastructure, and complex digital supply chains. These indirect, or Scope 3, emissions have become one of the biggest challenges in corporate sustainability reporting and technology strategy.

Salesforce’s FY2025 Sustainability Report illustrates just how significant this shift has become. Approximately 92 percent of the company’s carbon footprint comes from Scope 3 emissions rather than its own operations. While the numbers are specific to Salesforce, they reflect a broader reality across the SaaS industry, where increasingly interconnected technology ecosystems are making indirect emissions a far more significant concern than operational efficiency alone.

That’s why Scope 3 emissions are now more than just an ESG reporting metric. They have become a major concern for technology.

Why Scope 3 emissions matter for SaaS companies

Carbon reporting focused on what organizations could measure directly. Electricity used in offices, fuel consumed by company vehicles, and emissions from owned facilities formed the backbone of sustainability reporting. That model made sense when businesses controlled most of their operations.

Software companies work differently.

A modern SaaS platform relies on infrastructure it doesn’t own, suppliers it doesn’t manage directly, and services that may run in different countries.

Every cloud region, collaboration tool, authentication provider, payment processor, API integration, and consulting partner adds to the total. Alone, these services might seem small, but together they account for most of the emissions from enterprise software.

Salesforce’s FY2025 sustainability report shows how big this gap has become.

The company reported approximately 1.056 billion kilograms of CO₂ equivalent emissions during the fiscal year. Around 6 million kilograms came from Scope 1 activities, while 78 million kilograms were attributed to Scope 2 electricity consumption. The remaining 972 million kilograms fell under Scope 3 carbon emissions.

These numbers are not unique to Salesforce.

Across the SaaS industry, companies are getting more efficient in their own operations while also expanding their networks of suppliers, cloud providers, AI platforms, and software vendors.

As these ecosystems grow, indirect emissions naturally become a much bigger part of the total carbon footprint.

For technology leaders, this changes the conversation. It’s still important to track what happens inside company buildings, but that’s not enough anymore. The bigger challenge now is understanding emissions across the entire technology supply chain.

Where Salesforce Scope 3 emissions come from

Looking closer at Salesforce’s Scope 3 emissions shows that most of the impact comes from purchased goods and services. This shows how much enterprise software companies rely on outside partners in their operations.

Travel, investments, capital purchases, and employee commuting also add to emissions, but their impact is much smaller.

The company’s FY2025 disclosures break down its Scope 3 carbon emissions as follows.

One thing that’s often missed is how transparent these numbers are.

Salesforce reports on 10 out of the 15 Scope 3 categories defined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, giving much more detail than many other enterprise software vendors. This level of reporting helps sustainability teams see where reductions can make the most difference.

The company has also set clear long-term goals. Salesforce plans to cut its Scope 3 emissions by 68 percent per dollar of value added by fiscal 2031, using fiscal 2019 as the baseline.

After that, it aims for a 90 percent absolute emissions reduction by fiscal 2041 under the Science Based Targets initiative’s Net-Zero Standard. These commitments signal a broader shift in enterprise technology.

Not long ago, carbon accounting was mostly an annual task for sustainability teams.

Now, it’s becoming part of daily decisions. Procurement teams check supplier emissions, architects think about where to run infrastructure, and engineering leaders are starting to include environmental performance in technology strategy, along with cost, resilience, and security.

For many organizations, carbon data is slowly becoming a regular business metric rather than something reported only once a year.

Modern SaaS platforms rely on many connections

When a customer logs into a CRM system, it can trigger requests to an identity provider, payment gateway, analytics platform, cloud storage, messaging services, AI models, and several internal apps before a single dashboard loads. Most users never notice these steps.

At the enterprise level, it’s different. Millions or even billions of requests go through cloud infrastructure every day, using servers in many regions and run by different providers. The electricity needed for all this is part of the larger value chain, so APIs are now a key part of Scope 3 emissions.

That’s why API monitoring and observability are now used for more than just improving performance or fixing outages. They also help organizations see how their technology choices affect carbon emissions across the digital supply chain.

Salesforce has already started pushing that responsibility beyond its own operations. Suppliers representing around 60 percent of applicable Scope 3 purchased goods and services emissions are expected to disclose environmental data, giving the company better visibility into emissions generated throughout its partner ecosystem.

This approach shows a bigger shift in enterprise technology. Sustainability is now a shared responsibility, not just something one company handles alone.

The need for better visibility is becoming more urgent.

Research published in 2026 estimated that global data centers produced 286 million tonnes of CO₂ during 2025, roughly 57 percent higher than earlier International Energy Agency estimates. Much of that growth is linked to AI. Today, AI workloads account for an estimated 15 to 20 percent of data center electricity consumption, with projections suggesting that figure could reach 40 percent by 2030.

Where these workloads run also matters a lot.

Running the same application in a region that uses mostly renewable electricity can create a much smaller carbon footprint than running it in areas that rely on fossil fuels. For cloud architects, choosing where to deploy is now about more than just speed and uptime. It’s also part of the company’s sustainability plan.

API governance best practices for Scope 3 emissions

For years, API governance focused on reliability, security, and compliance.

These priorities are still important, but companies are now also looking at something new in their procurement decisions: environmental performance.

Technology leaders now want to know not just if a service is secure and reliable, but also how efficiently it runs and whether suppliers are tracking their own emissions.

As a result, several API governance best practices are starting to emerge.

• Request environmental disclosures, including renewable energy usage and Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), from third-party API providers.
• Connect API traffic with procurement categories used by carbon accounting software to improve Scope 3 reporting.
• Review high-volume ERP integration workloads that generate significant compute demand.
• Add emissions intensity alongside cost, uptime, security, and compliance within vendor management software.
• Include sustainability performance when evaluating suppliers or renewing technology contracts.

These practices don’t replace traditional governance. They add to it.

For many companies, sustainability is now another key metric, just like availability, performance, resilience, and security.

Salesforce Net Zero Cloud and Scope 3 carbon accounting

It’s much easier to track indirect emissions when sustainability data is managed together with operational data, instead of keeping it in separate spreadsheets.

This is what Salesforce Net Zero Cloud is designed to do. It brings together emissions data from business travel, supplier spending, freight, fuel use, and other activities into one system. Instead of collecting information manually once a year, organizations can get a more consistent view of their carbon footprint throughout the reporting cycle.

To support those calculations, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud includes emissions factors from recognized organizations such as the EPA, UK BEIS, the International Energy Agency, and the IPCC. Using standardized reference data helps organizations produce more consistent carbon inventories while reducing the manual work traditionally associated with sustainability reporting.

The platform also provides dedicated data objects for Scope 3 reporting, including Scope3EmssnSrc and Scope3PcmtSummary, allowing developers to associate procurement activities with emissions measured in tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.

For sustainability teams, this is more than just another reporting tool.

It lets companies track their carbon footprint as part of their regular business systems, using the same data flows that support procurement, finance, and ERP integration.

From annual reports to continuous Scope 3 reporting

Historically, many organizations approached sustainability reporting as a year-end exercise.

Teams gathered information from different business units, combined spreadsheets, calculated emissions, and published disclosures months later. By the time reports were done, much of the data already reflected decisions made long ago.

That process is slowly changing. Salesforce’s Disclosure and Compliance Hub supports reporting frameworks such as CDP, GRI, SASB, and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards by pulling information directly from Salesforce data rather than requiring separate reporting systems.

The result is a more ongoing approach to Scope 3 reporting.

In many ways, this is like how companies already use API observability tools to monitor app performance. Instead of checking performance once a year, teams now watch things like latency and uptime all the time. Sustainability reporting is starting to work the same way, with emissions becoming another metric that teams can track and improve over time.

AI growth is adding new pressure to Scope 3 emissions

Artificial intelligence is creating new opportunities for enterprise software, but it’s also making it harder to meet sustainability goals.

Salesforce has expanded its AI portfolio significantly, including products such as Agentforce. Those services require additional computing resources, and more computing inevitably means greater energy demand somewhere within the value chain.

Industry analysts say the growth of AI has made many organizations rethink their earlier climate plans. As AI use grows faster than electricity grids can get cleaner, it’s getting harder to reduce Scope 3 carbon emissions. Salesforce reported a 5 percent year-over-year drop in Scope 3 emissions, crediting part of that to stronger supplier engagement and ongoing investment in green software engineering practices.

The bigger lesson goes beyond Salesforce.

For enterprise technology leaders, AI innovation and sustainability are no longer separate conversations. Decisions about model deployment, cloud architecture, supplier selection, and software design increasingly influence both business performance and long-term environmental impact.

Market growth reflects rising demand for carbon visibility

As Scope 3 emissions become a bigger focus for companies, the software that supports sustainability programs is growing just as fast. One area seeing strong growth is API observability. Once viewed mainly as an operational tool for developers, it is now helping organizations understand how applications use infrastructure and where emissions are generated across complex digital ecosystems.

Industry analysts estimate the API observability and testing software market reached USD 3.47 billion in 2026 and could grow to USD 6.32 billion by 2031, representing a compound annual growth rate of around 12.7 percent.

Other market forecasts point in the same direction, projecting the sector to reach USD 7.71 billion by 2033 as enterprises invest more heavily in application monitoring, governance, and automation.

The same trend is playing out across carbon accounting software and ESG reporting software. Organizations are moving beyond annual sustainability disclosures and investing in platforms that continuously collect emissions data from procurement systems, cloud environments, finance applications, and supplier networks.

For business leaders, the message is clear: carbon reporting is slowly becoming a regular business skill, not just a separate compliance task.

What Scope 3 emissions mean for enterprise sustainability teams

Sustainability teams can’t handle Scope 3 emissions alone anymore. The best opportunities often come from technology decisions involving engineering, procurement, finance, security, and operations. This means working together across departments is just as important as picking the right reporting tools. Several practical steps are already emerging across the industry.

• Include emissions data alongside cost, security, and service quality when evaluating suppliers through vendor management software.
• Build ERP integration projects that correctly classify procurement data from the outset, rather than trying to reconstruct emissions data later.
• Apply green software engineering practices, such as selecting lower-carbon cloud regions, improving application efficiency, and reducing unnecessary compute workloads.
• Work with suppliers that provide reliable environmental disclosures to improve Scope 3 reporting accuracy.
• Use API monitoring and API observability to understand where infrastructure demand is growing across the technology stack.

These steps won’t eliminate indirect emissions right away. But they do help organizations see where emissions come from and where real improvements are possible.

For many companies, this is becoming the first step toward building a more sustainable digital business.

FAQs

What are Scope 3 emissions?

Scope 3 emissions are indirect greenhouse gas emissions generated across a company’s value chain. SaaS businesses typically include emissions from suppliers, cloud providers, purchased goods and services, business travel, employee commuting, and third-party technology partners.

Why do Scope 3 emissions matter for SaaS companies?

Unlike manufacturers, software companies usually generate most of their emissions outside their own operations. Cloud infrastructure, APIs, supplier services, and digital platforms often account for the largest share of their environmental impact, making Scope 3 reporting essential for understanding the full carbon footprint.

What are Salesforce Scope 3 emissions?

According to Salesforce’s FY2025 sustainability disclosures, approximately 92 percent of the company’s total emissions fall under Salesforce Scope 3 emissions. Purchased goods and services represent the largest contributor, followed by business travel and capital goods.

What is Salesforce Net Zero Cloud?

Salesforce Net Zero Cloud is a carbon accounting software platform that helps organizations measure, manage, and report greenhouse gas emissions. It brings together operational and supplier data to support Scope 3 reporting, regulatory disclosures, and broader enterprise sustainability initiatives.

How do APIs affect Scope 3 emissions?

Every API request relies on computing resources hosted by cloud providers or technology partners. While a single request uses very little energy, billions of API calls across enterprise applications contribute to infrastructure demand, making API monitoring and API observability increasingly valuable for understanding indirect emissions.

What are some API governance best practices for sustainability?

Modern API governance extends beyond security and performance. Organizations are increasingly asking suppliers to disclose environmental information, monitoring high-volume integrations, including emissions data in procurement decisions, and incorporating sustainability metrics into vendor management software alongside cost, reliability, and compliance.

How can organizations improve Scope 3 reporting?

Improving Scope 3 reporting starts with better visibility. Many organizations combine carbon accounting software, supplier disclosures, ERP integration, and standardized emissions data to build more accurate inventories and identify opportunities to re

In brief

For SaaS companies, Scope 3 emissions now make up the largest part of their carbon footprint, so indirect emissions can’t be ignored. Salesforce’s sustainability strategy shows how carbon accounting is changing from a yearly report to an ongoing part of daily operations that affects procurement, cloud setup, supplier management, and software design.

As AI adoption accelerates and digital ecosystems become more interconnected, organizations will need stronger API governance, better carbon footprint tracking, and more transparent supplier data to understand the true environmental impact of their technology investments. The companies that treat sustainability as part of everyday engineering and business decisions, rather than a separate ESG initiative, will be better prepared for the next phase of enterprise technology.