Where Nature Meet AI: Salesforce’s Model for Impact Innovation

From restoring forests to protecting biodiversity and supporting community wellbeing, nature-based solutions are essential for strengthening ecosystems and reducing environmental impact.

But to fully harness nature's potential to drive global resilience and restoration efforts, we need innovation that matches the scale and urgency of the challenge.

That's where agentic AI - the technology that powers autonomous AI agents - can play a critical role. Designed to act with limited human oversight, reason and make contextual decisions, and learn and adapt over time, agents can help reduce the manual burden on humans and enable faster, more intelligent action.

This limitless digital labor can help build and scale important nature-based solutions like real-time ecosystem monitoring, forecasting severe weather disasters, land use best practices, reforestation planning, and more.

Salesforce accelerators offer technology and support to scale nonprofit impact

Unfortunately, many mission-driven organizations, like those with the passion to deliver nature-based solutions, lack the capacity and technical resources needed to fully realize their goals. According to Salesforce research, while 74% of nonprofits recognize the value of technology, limited staff and funding often stand in the way of achieving their mission. This makes them especially well-suited to benefit from the efficiency and support that digital labor can offer.

That's why, through the Salesforce Accelerator - Agents for Impact, we provide nonprofits with funding, technology, and pro bono expertise to help them scale solutions to address climate challenges with Agentforce, our digital labor platform for building and deploying autonomous AI agents.

This accelerator is already supporting organizations wanting to make a difference. Good360, which provides goods to families during disasters, is using Agentforce to more efficiently match resources with those in need, with a projected 20% reduction in emissions. Groundswell, which will leverage an agent to streamline customer workflows and expand clean energy access to local communities.

With Salesforce's accelerator and Agentforce, these nonprofits are driving operational excellence while scaling solutions that serve both people and the planet.

Turning bold nature ideas into real-world impact

Building on the success of Salesforce Accelerator - Agents for Impact, this Earth Month, we're adding a new group of accelerator participants who focus exclusively on nature. These five organizations will leverage agentic AI solutions, transforming their bold, nature-based solutions into tangible real-world impact:

• Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is creating a forest certification agent with the goal of making FSC certification more accessible, including providing tools for community and family forests, and accelerating the adoption of responsible forest management practices worldwide.
• Rare is rolling out a regenerative agriculture coach to deliver real-time, localized guidance to smallholder farmers tailored to their crops, soils, and local agro-ecological conditions. Anticipated impact includes a 40% reduction in staff time and the adoption of climate-resilient practices across 5,000 farmers in the initial phase.
• Fair Trade USA is building a partner management agent to understand holistic partner health, quickly resolve issues, and proactively engage partners to maintain investment in the Fair Trade Certification program, ultimately aiming to increase meaningful partner outreach and reduce trade partner decertification by 6%.
• Global Water Center is launching a WASH alumni agent to deliver relevant, personalized learning resources to professionals working on safely managed water access, improving the dissemination of best practices in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) - and potentially increasing the number of learners mentored by 125%.
• Ceres is developing a partner engagement agent to support portfolio companies in implementing 500 sustainable company actions - with the anticipated impact of speeding the time for companies to make sustainability commitments by 33%.

We're excited to see what these nonprofits can do with Agentforce as they scale nature-based solutions for the betterment of our planet.

Making AI more accessible and sustainable

The accelerator program is part of Salesforce's broader initiatives to make AI more accessible and sustainable - turning agentic innovation into a force multiplier for long-term impact.

For example, we recently partnered with Hugging Face, Cohere, and Carnegie Mellon to launch the AI Energy Score, a first-of-its-kind benchmarking tool that enables AI developers and users to compare the energy use of AI models. As part of this effort, we are the first company to disclose the energy use of proprietary AI models. And, we're working with other incredible companies who are doing the same.

"Transparency like that offered by the AI Energy Score is crucial," said Ariane Thomas, Global Tech Director of Sustainability, L'OREAL Group. "By openly sharing energy consumption data, our companies can collectively implement ecodesign practices and minimize the environmental footprint of AI technologies."

We also published Sustainable AI Policy Principles, a framework aimed at guiding AI regulation to minimize environmental impact and spur climate innovation, and supported the Transformational AI to Modernize the Economy (TAME) legislation, which promotes the adoption of AI to better predict and respond to extreme weather.

A new model for technology, nature, and human ingenuity

These efforts are about more than piloting new tools. Our accelerator program and AI initiatives are helping Salesforce build a new model for how technology, nature, and human ingenuity can work together. A model where a smallholder farmer receives instant guidance on regenerative practices. Where forest certification is no longer a barrier, but a bridge to restoration. Where frontline communities don't just react to climate impacts - they anticipate and adapt, faster than ever before.

Together with our customers, partners, and employees, we're turning bold, AI-powered ideas into real-world impact.

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