Net Zero Cloud
Net Zero Cloud is Salesforce's sustainability management application for tracking, calculating, and reporting an organization's environmental footprint.
Definition
Net Zero Cloud is Salesforce's sustainability management application for tracking, calculating, and reporting an organization's environmental footprint. It captures carbon emissions across Scope 1 (direct operations), Scope 2 (purchased electricity), and Scope 3 (value chain), pulls activity data from utility bills, travel systems, and supplier records, and applies emission factors to produce auditable carbon, water, and waste metrics.
The product ships as a managed package layered on top of the Lightning Platform, so emissions data lives in custom objects, governance rules follow standard sharing and audit trail, and reports build in the familiar report builder. Net Zero Cloud connects to common disclosure frameworks such as CDP, GRI, SASB, TCFD, and the EU CSRD, and surfaces benchmarks against industry peers. Common users are sustainability officers, ESG analysts, and CFO offices preparing mandatory climate disclosures.
How Net Zero Cloud structures emissions data and disclosures
The Scope 1, 2, 3 emissions model
The GHG Protocol splits emissions into three scopes. Scope 1 covers direct combustion: fleet vehicles, on-site boilers, refrigerant leaks. Scope 2 covers purchased energy: electricity, steam, district heating. Scope 3 covers the rest of the value chain: purchased goods, business travel, employee commute, transportation, end-of-life product treatment. Net Zero Cloud has separate object models and data-loader templates for each scope. Most organizations under-report Scope 3 because the data lives across hundreds of supplier invoices; Net Zero Cloud's Procurement Spend Calculator estimates Scope 3 from spend categories when supplier data is missing.
Activity data and emission factors
Every emission record starts as an activity: 1,200 kWh of electricity consumed, 450 miles flown, 800 gallons of diesel burned. Net Zero Cloud applies an emission factor (kilograms of CO2 equivalent per unit) from a built-in library that includes EPA, DEFRA, IEA, and EXIOBASE factors. The factor library updates automatically each year as governments republish their values. Custom factors can be added for niche fuels or regional refinements; the product timestamps every factor change so historical filings stay auditable.
Data collection through Stationary Asset and Operational Boundary
Stationary Assets represent buildings, factories, and offices that consume energy. Operational Boundaries group assets under business units, regions, or legal entities to roll emissions up the org tree. Travel Records hold flight and rail trips with origin, destination, and class. Refrigerant and waste records cover fugitive emissions. Each object has standard fields for emission factor links, calculation methods, and uncertainty grades so auditors can trace a number all the way back to the source invoice.
Disclosure frameworks and pre-built reports
Net Zero Cloud ships with question packs for CDP Climate, CDP Water, CDP Forests, GRI 305, SASB, and TCFD. The CSRD-aligned ESRS E1 pack is the newest addition, required for large EU-listed companies starting 2025 fiscal year filings. Each framework maps Net Zero Cloud fields to the framework's disclosure points, generates a draft narrative, and lets analysts edit and export to the format the standard requires (CDP XML, GRI XBRL, etc.). The dashboards inside the app preview the disclosure before submission.
Reduction targets and scenario analysis
Set a Science-Based Target through the Target Setting feature: pick a baseline year, a target year (usually 2030 or 2050), an absolute or intensity-based reduction, and the methodology (SBTi 1.5C aligned, well-below 2C, etc.). The product tracks progress automatically as activity data flows in. Scenario Analysis lets sustainability teams model "what if we electrify the fleet by 2028" or "what if we shift 30 percent of suppliers to renewable energy by 2030" and see the projected emissions path against the target.
Where Net Zero Cloud is weakest
Out-of-the-box, Scope 3 calculation depth is shallow. Companies with mature ESG programs build supplier-specific Scope 3 models with primary data; Net Zero Cloud's default is spend-based estimation, which has wide uncertainty bands. Water and waste tracking exist but are less mature than carbon. Most organizations use Net Zero Cloud for Scopes 1 and 2 and roll their own Scope 3 model in CRM Analytics or an external tool. Salesforce has been closing this gap with each release; check the latest Sustainability Cloud roadmap before committing for Scope 3 depth.
How to set up Net Zero Cloud for a first carbon inventory
The shortest path to a defensible carbon inventory is to pick a baseline year, ingest energy and travel data for that year, validate against utility bills, then layer Scope 3.
- Install Net Zero Cloud and assign licenses
Net Zero Cloud is a paid product. Install the managed package from the org, then assign the Net Zero Cloud permission set to sustainability admins and the read-only set to executives who consume dashboards.
- Define operational boundaries
Create Operational Boundary records for each legal entity, region, or business unit. Tag every Stationary Asset to its boundary so emissions roll up cleanly to whatever level the disclosure requires.
- Ingest the baseline year's activity data
Use the data loader templates to import electricity consumption (kWh per asset per month), natural gas (therms or cubic meters), fleet fuel (gallons by vehicle), and air travel (miles or trips by class). Twelve months of monthly data is the minimum for a baseline.
- Validate calculated emissions against external benchmarks
Once activity data is loaded, the platform calculates tons of CO2 equivalent automatically. Cross-check against the previous year's utility bills and any published peer benchmark. A 5 to 10 percent variance is normal; 25 percent or more usually means a unit conversion error in the import.
- Configure the disclosure framework
Pick the framework the company files under (CDP, GRI, CSRD, TCFD) and map any custom fields to the framework's question pack. Generate a draft disclosure, route it to the audit committee, and export the final version for submission.
Highest accuracy. Use when you have kWh, gallons, or miles per asset. Default for Scope 1 and 2.
Use when activity data is unavailable. Apply EXIOBASE or comparable factors to spend categories. Higher uncertainty but acceptable for early Scope 3.
Activity-based for material categories (commuter travel, purchased goods top 80 percent by spend), spend-based for the long tail.
Highest fidelity for Scope 3. Pulls allocated emissions from suppliers' own CDP disclosures. Requires supplier engagement program.
- Emission factors update every year. Lock the factor version used for each historical disclosure with a custom field so restatements are intentional, not accidental.
- Net Zero Cloud's audit trail captures field-level history only if Field Audit Trail is enabled. Turn it on for emission-related fields before the first disclosure cycle.
- Scope 2 has two methods: location-based (grid average) and market-based (contractual instruments like RECs). Most disclosure frameworks require both. Calculate and store both columns; do not pick one.
- Refrigerant emissions are easy to miss and can be a Scope 1 surprise. Add them to the data collection plan from day one; HVAC leaks alone can be 5 to 15 percent of a corporate Scope 1 footprint.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Net Zero Cloud OverviewSalesforce
- GHG Protocol Corporate StandardGHG Protocol
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Net Zero Cloud.
- Net Zero Cloud DocumentationSalesforce Help
- Scope 3 Emissions in Net Zero CloudSalesforce Help
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Net Zero Cloud.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
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