Cybersecurity vendor Sumo Logic is staking its claim in the corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) arena while working to secure and analyze enterprise cloud-native applications.

Sumo Logic released its 2022 ESG report highlighting the vendor's "great initiatives underway" and the "important work ahead," CEO Ramin Sayar said in the report, touting the vendor's responsibility to operate with both integrity and respect for "our communities and the planet."

The vendor's ESG priorities, which it says align with what the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board has outlined for the software and IT services industries, are also tied to the company's operational mission and core values: being "in it" with customers, having one cohesive agenda, encouraging a culture of learning, "working with heart," and "bringing light to dark."

As global demand for Sumo Logic's software-as-a-service (SaaS) analytics platform increases – which the company expects it will when more businesses around the globe continue digital transformations and adopt cloud-native technologies – the vendor's negative environmental impact and responsibility for that mitigation will increase in tandem. However, Sumo Logic says it has incorporated decision-making around global office locations, flexible work arrangements, and outsourced cloud computing into its sustainability approach.

"As a company based entirely on cloud infrastructure, we save costs and emissions by not relying on large data centers," the report explained. The vendor doesn't own or operate any on-premises data centers, and its services are hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) compute resources, "allowing us to leverage economies of scale regarding carbon emissions and electricity and water usage."

While Sumo Logic's cloud outsourcing means the scope 3 emissions from customer use of its platforms aren't technically under its control, it's still responsible for those emissions. However, AWS is a long-time player in renewable energy markets and plans to power its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, making that outsourcing a logical choice to help keep Sumo Logic's compute emissions low.

"AWS purchases and retires environmental attributes, like renewable energy credits and guarantees of origin, to cover the non-renewable energy used in some of the AWS regions in which we operate, such as U.S. West, Europe (Frankfurt and Ireland), and Canada (Central). In fiscal 2022, most of our AWS usage was in the U.S. West region," the report noted.

AWS' approach to data center cooling is another important piece of Sumo Logic's environmental impact because the cybersecurity vendor is using AWS data centers. "AWS incorporates direct evaporative technology for cooling their data centers, which reduces their energy and water consumption," the report said, highlighting in addition the cloud provider's customer carbon footprint tool that allows tracking, measuring, reviewing, and forecasting of emissions resulting from using AWS' cloud services.

According to the report, the majority of Sumo Logic's operational footprint comes from its headquarters in Redwood City, California, where around 23% of its employees work, and three of its offices are environmentally certified in at least one green building certification. And with just 948 global employees, the report noted its operational impact is relatively low.

An initiative highlighted by the report is last year's installation of a computer-based building management system that improved energy efficiency and automated operating systems at the vendor's headquarters, which has helped lower its scope 1 and 2 emissions.

To that point, operational metrics such as electricity consumption, water use, natural gas consumption, and scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions are steadily decreasing, and Sumo Logic is able to divert 76% of its waste from landfills, according to the vendor's ESG report. The report, however, does not include metrics or information related to scope 3 or supply chain emissions, which are often a company's largest source.