DataColada joined Trace to meet the expectations of their climate-conscious employees and extend their existing focus on making a positive impact in the lives of others, to making a positive impact on the planet too. 

Here’s a snapshot of their journey so far and what they’re planning to do to leave a positive trace by reducing their emissions.

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About DataColada

DataColada blends years of experience in human-centred design, development and data science to create Salesforce solutions that deliver exceptional digital experiences to customers, employees and partners. They have particular expertise in the not-for-profit, education, healthcare and professional services sectors and are committed to helping those who positively impact our world.

We spoke with Steven Hayes, DataColada’s Sales Leader and Head of Culture, about why the company joined Trace and what they’re currently planning in order to progress on their journey to net zero (and beyond!).

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Why DataColada decided to become carbon neutral

It’s all about people at DataColada - people are core to their mission and the values of their team are central to how they deliver on this mission to positively impact the world.

From day one, their team is focused on positive impact - every new employee gets a copy of sustainability-essential reading Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth on joining so they can start to understand how their work plays a role in the ‘bigger picture’, 

While they’re currently focused on working in not for profits, education, health care and professional services industries, the team is also very passionate about environmental issues so they were the driving force behind DataColada wanting to take responsibility for their own carbon emissions. They wanted to take immediate, tangible action - and that’s what led them to Trace!

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Looking to the future…

The DataColada team is now excited to take what they’ve learned from their first carbon assessment and put it into action. 

Reflecting on their substantial energy emissions, Steven has been considering how they can support staff to switch to renewable energy with incentives like subsidies for solar installation (which he already has installed at home) or other mechanisms to encourage staff to reduce their home carbon emissions.

DataColada’s staff are located half in Australia, and half in Kolkata, India. Comparing the two offices, the Kolkata office has a much lower carbon footprint.

“I want to challenge the Sydney team to reduce our emissions to the same level as Kolkata.”

Nothing like a bit of competition to motivate positive action!

The other piece of the puzzle is establishing bottom-up reporting to make sure they can improve the quality of their emissions data and track their progress on reduction initiatives. In future, they’d like to engage the team even more in the data collection process to more accurately capture work-from-home emissions and educate staff around how they can take action at the same time.

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Features they can’t wait to see

“We’d like to better understand how we compare to other businesses like us. I have no idea whether X tonnes of CO2 per FTE is a lot and if we’re doing well or not.”

“Our company is very purpose-driven - we don’t settle for ‘good enough’. I’d love to make use of benchmarking data in the Trace platform to know if we’re simply ‘meeting the bar’ or exceeding it, so we can make sure we’re doing the latter”, says Steven.

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