Revealing Microsoft's Secret to Supply Chain Sustainability

As Director, Global Black Belt Sustainability for the Americas at Microsoft, Rosa Chang Claro focuses on integrating sustainability within supply chains, recognising its role in reducing emissions throughout Microsoft's vast network.

Her efforts extend beyond her role, encompassing community projects and personal passions such as supporting Peruvian charities and participating in swimming competitions.

At Sustainability LIVE: Chicago, Supply Chain Digital had the opportunity to discuss with Rosa how sustainability intersects with supply chains and technology.

Could you introduce yourself and your role, please?

My name is Rosa Chang. I am the Director of Global Black Belt Sustainability in the Americas at Microsoft. We connect the dots between the business process and technology. We ask ourselves how we can help our customers and what the benefits are that they can receive with our solution business technology and sustainability benefits.

Black belt is one of the best titles we've ever seen for a job. What does it mean?

We call it ‘subject matter experts’. We are not ninjas, but we use Lean Six Sigma Design, Think and Business Value Management frameworks, to help our customers with their challenges and where they are facing pain points. And based on that, how we can enable solutions from partners and from Microsoft to identify how they can achieve their goals and find the business, technology and also sustainability benefits.

Can you tell us about your career journey, your background and how you ended up at Microsoft?

I started in financial services early in my career. I am native Peruvian, born and raised in Peru, but then I moved to Mexico to study my masters in finance. I created the first eco-friendly mortgage in Mexico and the curiosity about sustainability started like that.

But then the financial crisis arrived. I was laid off and I moved into technology. I couldn't believe that in technology, what they need is also people that can be closer to the business area and understand the processes, the challenges.

That was the way that I started working in technology, covering different industries, financial services, airlines and manufacturing. That was how I joined Microsoft.

However, when I was at Microsoft in 2020, during the pandemic, Microsoft announced to the world its main commitments in sustainability: big commitments to become carbon negative, water positive and zero waste. And that is when I decided to raise my hand and basically create a proactive value proposition to support our customers in their sustainability journey.

What is it that you love about your job?

The opportunity to talk with people, but most important, the impact that you can bring with the customers to society, the environment and people – understanding the different things that the customer can do to reduce their emissions.

What would you say are the greatest sustainability challenges for Microsoft and therefore for the industry?

The big challenge, and I think that is not only for Microsoft but for most of the industries, is that the indirect emissions – the emissions coming from the value chain are huge.

For example, at Microsoft, Scope 3, the indirect emissions, represent 96% of the total emissions in the organisation. So it’s about focusing on the value chain in the procurement process and on how the products arrive to the customer.

It’s also about how circularity can help to reduce emissions, and about automating and digitalising processes. We are using artificial intelligence to reduce manual work and instead to focus on what is important.

What kind of things is Microsoft doing to achieve those aims – relating to water positivity, carbon negativity, etc?

The strategy is fascinating because we work in three circles. One is that we take care of our own environmental footprint. We measure our carbon footprint and our water footprint. But we also offer digital solutions to our customers in order to their sustainability journey.

The third circle is also about global impact. We work with governments, universities and NGOs in order to advocate for progress that accelerates policies for climate markets, carbon free markets and developing new markets. We have a US$1bn climate innovation fund (basically a carbon tax) that we applied to the whole organisation at Microsoft – to our different divisions, our different data centres.

We pay a carbon fee for our energy consumption, water consumption and business travel. This has created an innovation fund that we are using to invest, for example, in sustainable aviation fuel with United Airlines.

We are also using this fund, for example, for restoration of ecosystems in Mexico and for water replenishment and water optimisation in Chile, Texas and Denver. We use this fund to support the community, but also help us to decarbonise and to achieve carbon negative.

How is Microsoft tackling the issue of energy consumption driven by AI and data centres?

We have a strategy for 2025 to operate all our data centres with 100% renewable energy. And we are on track. This means we are using renewable energy in all our data centres and that also helps our customers when they move their operations from on-premise to cloud, to reduce their energy consumption and their carbon emissions. That's why we are also investing a lot and advocating for policies in terms of accelerating carbon-free electricity. That is the way that we consider that we can operate in a more sustainable way.

Have you got anything else that you'd like to add?

There was something from the Women in Sustainability panel. I think that it's going to be important to continue to encourage STEM careers – science, technology, engineering and maths. That is the future and it has to be with a sustainability mindset. I think that if everybody can start thinking about how they can support people, planet and prosperity with these careers, I think that innovation is going to come more often and it's going to be a systemic breakthrough to bring collaboration between the private and the public sector.​​​​​​​

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