The Arnott’s Group partners with Microsoft to transform its sustainability measurement capabilities

The Arnott’s Group and Microsoft have announced a new partnership to help the iconic food manufacturer transform its sustainability agenda by using data more effectively.

The Arnott’s Group will become the first organisation in Australia and New Zealand to deploy Microsoft Sustainability Manager. The Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability solution unifies data intelligence and provides comprehensive, integrated and automated sustainability management for organisations at any stage of their sustainability journey.

Simon Lowden, The Arnott’s Group Chief Transformation Officer said one of the key benefits of its new partnership with Microsoft is the ability to capture better quality data more efficiently, to provide a single view of the sustainability performance across the whole business.

“Sustainability impacts every area of our business and requires that every member of our team play a role,” he said. “By democratising the data through Microsoft’s Sustainability Manager, our teams are able to better visualise the progress and chart our targets.”

By using the Microsoft Sustainability Manager, The Arnott’s Group will have improved visibility of its emissions activities. This will allow the business, for the first time, to report impact and progress in near real time.

The solution will also give The Arnott’s Group access to the data intelligence needed to refine and scale its sustainability initiatives, achieve end-to-end business transformation, and educate everyone across the business on its progress.

Mr Lowden said:

The Arnott’s Group’s sustainability commitments include:

• sustainably growing and sourcing 100 per cent of its key ingredients (wheat flour, sugar, oils, dairy and cocoa products) by 2035
• achieving net zero emissions in its operations (Scope 1 and 2) by 2040 and across the value chain (Scope 3) by 2050
• reducing, reusing or repurposing plastic packaging across Australia and New Zealand by 10 per cent by 2025
• increasing choice, opportunity and wellbeing by promoting inclusion and belonging, supporting communities and providing more diverse food options and guidance on nutrition.

Sean McLintock, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at The Arnott’s Group, said: ”It’s important that we illuminate our sustainability data end-to-end, to continue to hold ourselves accountable to meeting our sustainability targets.”

Brett Shoemaker, Chief Sustainability Officer at Microsoft Australia and New Zealand, said: “At Microsoft, we recognise the critical role technology can play in empowering our customers to accelerate their sustainability journeys. We’re very excited to be partnering with such an iconic Australian brand as they turn their pledges into real, measurable progress.”

The deployment of Microsoft Sustainability Manager, which Arnott’s expects to complete in March, follows a major data transformation project commenced by the company last year. This included investing in a Microsoft Azure hosted data lake to centralise business reporting and create a single source of truth.

“Arnott’s is an established 157-year-old company, but we are agile from a digital investment perspective,” Lowden said. “We are really transforming how our business operates both in the ways of working and the strategic partners we’re choosing to work with.”

“Our new sustainability partnership with Microsoft is a perfect example of that.”