Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability data model overview
The Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability data model helps you to align your sustainability data to optimize the extraction, transformation, and loading pipeline into Microsoft Dataverse. The imported data is ready for consumption by Microsoft Sustainability Manager, which further processes the data and produces actionable output, such as emission reduction opportunities and other analyses.
The Cloud for Sustainability data model is the data foundation for Sustainability Manager. You can also use it independently to build other sustainability solutions. We recommend that you use this documentation when you design sustainability data pipelines. Customer activities that produce greenhouse gas emissions, such as mobile combustion activities, can then be loaded and used by Sustainability Manager or other Dataverse applications.
The following links contain more information about each area of the Cloud for Sustainability data model:
- Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability shared data model
- Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability carbon data model
- Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability water data model
- Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability waste data model
You can use the Cloud for Sustainability data model in various scenarios, including the following examples:
Pre-transform incoming sustainability data into a format that Sustainability Manager can consume directly.
Use Sustainability Manager output together with data from financial operations to create extensive reports for your stakeholders.
Use Sustainability Manager output to attach custom AI processing and produce extended insights for emissions reductions.
As a system integrator, use Sustainability Manager on behalf of multiple customers and align all those customers to a common schema.
Use the data model for semantic reference to better understand how to model your data.
Product carbon footprint data model
Important
The general availability release of the product carbon footprint data model includes the following changes:
Two tables (Product carbon footprint and Product identifier) are deprecated. Their information is combined into the Product footprint and Product (sustainability) tables, respectively. The deprecated tables and related deprecated fields will be removed from the product in October 2024.
The references from activities and emissions are restructured. Activity and emissions records have a polymorphic lookup to the Sustainability item and Product (sustainability) tables. Relevant activity and emissions records have a reference to the Product footprint table for use in calculation models.
There is a new hierarchical Product category table introduced, and the existing field on the Product (sustainablity) table is deprecated.
Other updates include changes to the Country/region and Characterization factors columns in the Product footprint table, new fields in the Product table, and some renamed tables and fields.
The product carbon footprint data model is based on Pathfinder Framework Version 2 from World Business Council For Sustainable Development (WBCSD). It facilitates storage of product carbon footprints (PCFs) and includes relationships between activities and products/items. These relationships allow you to associate activities with a relevant product for scenarios where you need to attribute an emission to a product.
In addition, some scope 3 tables contain a reference to PCF (labeled factor) for scenarios where you need to use a PCF to compute an emission. For more information about calculations, go to Add a calculation model.
Related information
- Extend the Cloud for Sustainability data model
- Record uniqueness in Microsoft Sustainability Manager
- Calculation models in Microsoft Sustainability Manager
