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The Power Of Purpose: How Salesforce Is Raising The Bar For Silicon Valley Companies To Get Involved In The United Nations SDG’s

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The atmosphere at Dreamforce, Salesforce’s annual convention is unlike any other technology conference I’ve ever been to. As you enter the vast auditorium where President Obama is scheduled to have a fireside chat with Founder, Chairman and Co-CEO Marc Benioff, we are serenaded by the gentle, soothing sounds of Hawaiian musician LT Smooth, playing acoustic guitar. With woodland themed projections, the whole vibe is more campfire than conference. President Obama is greeted with a rapturous standing ovation. “Everything boils down to two things: be kind and be useful,” he says. That might well be the motto of everyone here.

Salesforce is unlike any other technology company in the Bay Area. Besides its unique and quirky culture (the 171,000 attendee conference is themed around National Parks and nature, with ‘Park Rangers’ to show you the way, and giant stuffed animals everywhere), it’s commitment to being a force for good is unparalleled. It was where the Pledge 1% movement got started, a model for philanthropy that has now been adopted by thousands of companies, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for good causes.

Salesforce is now making an even bigger commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with $17 million dollars in grants, and a pledge of one million employee volunteer hours to be devoted to the topic over the next year. Salesforce is focused on helping to achieve Goals 4: Quality Education; 5: Gender Equality; 7: Affordable and Clean Energy; 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth; 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities; and 13: Climate Action.

Salesforce has also joined the United Nations Global Compact, signed the United Nations Women's Empowerment Principles and the company's emissions reductions targets were approved by the Science Based Targets initiative.

 I caught up with Suzanne DiBianca, Salesforce’s passionate and highly respected Chief Impact Officer at a special interactive exhibit at Dreamforce, part of an interactive Quest, a campus-wide experience where attendees can collectively unlock $1 million that Salesforce will donate to three organizations focused on advancing the SDGs: UN Women, United Nations Foundation and World's Largest Lesson in partnership with UNICEF. I started by asking her why there was a need to spotlight the UN SDG’s in Silicon Valley.

“You know, I’m an East Coast Girl and one of the things that I noticed on the West Coast is that because we don't have the United Nations here, we’re in kind of a little bubble in Silicon Valley. The United Nations is celebrating their 75th anniversary this year in California, so we think it's a good way to prep for that and get people in action. It's a good nonpartisan, nonpolitical framework that is a blueprint for taking action. People need a playbook. I think the ‘why question’ is off the table, the ‘what’ question is off the table. What's on the table is ‘how.’”

DiBianca believes Silicon Valley companies can link to the SDG’s in ways that are appropriate to their business models. “DocuSign is an interesting example. I was talking to their CEO and I said, ‘you guys have saved the equivalent of half the Amazon rainforest, right through just your core products.’ They are Life on Land, (SDG Goal 15) and they launched the DocuSign Forest Initiative and that makes a ton of sense for their business. So I think if you take every business, you can connect the dots.”

DiBianca talked about one unexpected side benefit of focusing on doing the right thing–attracting the best talent. “So it started for us with the Pledge 1% model where we started, gosh, almost 20 years ago. And that was like a tertiary benefit that we didn't intentionally designed for. But we get incredible talent in the company in two areas, where it is really competitive talent for this area. One is in developers and technical talent, and the second is in executive talent.”

When I asked DiBianca about what problem is top of their list, she doesn’t hesitate. “Climate action. We can't pontificate. One of our mantras is ‘if you tried to do everything, you will do nothing.’ So, where can we go deep? And for us it's around energy, it's around climate action. I think every company has to become a net-zero company. The federal government is not setting regulation or policy, so we need the investor and business community to say ‘this is critical.’ Yes, there’s business continuity issues for natural disasters that are happening, like sea rise. But you should be doing it because it's the right thing to do.”

Salesforce’s resourceful culture also means the company rolls up its sleeves and invents solutions themselves when needed. “Clean energy is one of the goals for us that we really believe in: there is no if’s and’s or buts. This year we launched the Sustainability Cloud, which is like a carbon footprinting tool. We tried a whole bunch of other solutions and they weren't very good. And so in typical Salesforce fashion, we kind of hacked a carbon accounting tool, and put it up for all of our customers to use and it's going to be GA (General Availability) in December and it's awesome. So it's another way technology can make a difference,” said DiBianca.

Later in the day at Dreamforce, we’re privileged to hear from two inspiring young leaders from the climate change movement: Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, Youth Director of Earth Guardians and Alexandria Villaseñor, cofounder of U.S. Youth Climate Strike and founder of Earth Uprising. One of the phrases Martinez says resonates in my mind, as he gives advice to those individuals and companies who find themselves in positions of power. “Leverage your privilege,” he says. That is exactly what Salesforce is doing: using its resources, people and innovation to tackle the biggest issues of our time. It is a stirring example for all companies–not just those in Silicon Valley–to follow, and one that I hope inspires even more companies to take action to create a just and sustainable future for all.

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