How Medallia built a sustainability program that influenced $30M+ in revenue with Watershed

Challenge

Expanding from professional services to corporate social responsibility

Heather Jin started her career at Medallia in Professional Services, implementing enterprise customer solutions, where she gained a deep understanding of the product and its impact across industries. She soon became passionate about Corporate Social Responsibility and supporting nonprofits using Medallia, eventually transitioning into a CSR leadership role.

As the corporate responsibility landscape began shifting, the scope of her position expanded to encompass broader, more comprehensive sustainability and environmental initiatives.

Aligning values with growing stakeholder demands

As Jin observed, multiple forces were reshaping the landscape: heightened regulatory oversight, expanded reporting mandates, and a fundamental shift in how sustainability was viewed both inside and outside Medallia's walls. While environmental and social responsibility had long been woven into Medallia's DNA, the company recognized that the moment called for transforming its implicit values to contribute positively to the planet and its communities’ wellbeing into explicit commitments.

• Internal commitment to sustainability: The Medallia team believed strongly in their responsibility to contribute positively to their planet and communities' wellbeing, viewing environmental impact as a fundamental aspect of their culture.
• Customers demanded sustainability be a priority: Medallia began to see a surge in sustainability-related RFP, audit, and contract requirements, with prospective customers demanding clear environmental commitments. In response, they needed to demonstrate concrete sustainability actions.
• Board members and investors sought accountability: Medallia's key investor showed an increasing interest in Medallia's climate efforts.

But Medallia was starting from scratch, and without in-house sustainability experts or emissions tracking systems, they had a limited understanding of their environmental impact. As a result, they were uncertain about where to focus their reduction efforts. They needed a comprehensive sustainability platform to understand their emissions, set achievable goals, track progress, and inform stakeholders along the way.

“Two years ago, we had nothing in place, even as we were getting more and more RFP requests from customers asking about our environmental commitments. We needed a way to measure, track, and report on our impact to launch a successful program.”

Heather Jin,
Global Head of Social Impact and Sustainability

Solution

Selecting a long-term technology solution

Jin evaluated the best tool to help Medallia measure, track, and report on its sustainability efforts by weighing consultants versus technology platforms. Her analysis revealed that bringing in a consultant wouldn't bring long-term value year-over-year; to drive results over decades, a solution with more longevity and consistency would be better suited. "We needed a sustainable, repeatable measurement process that would empower our own team," she says.

Medallia ultimately chose Watershed because of several factors:

• Strong recommendations from peer companies like Coupa and Okta
• Close alignment with their parent company, which also uses Watershed to manage its climate program
• A modular platform that would allow for program growth and robust estimation capabilities

Overall, Watershed stood apart because of its team’s expertise and guidance. “It was clear that Watershed not only offered a sustainable, repeatable process, but it also came with a lot of expertise,” Jin says. “I don’t have a PhD in sustainability, and sometimes it can feel like you need one to measure and keep up to date with regulations! Watershed gave me confidence in its reliable, auditable software and the qualified team supporting me.”

Implementation strategy

At the helm of Medallia's nascent sustainability program, Jin leaned on Watershed to lay the foundation for the initiative. "We were starting from zero," she says.

She worked with Watershed to identify and educate stakeholders on the importance of this work and the data collection process. The frameworks established in the implementation process and initial measurement set the tone for year-over-year improvement.

"Watershed alleviated a lot of our heartburn at the outset by giving us the confidence that, even if our data wasn't perfect at first, Watershed’s estimation tools would ensure that our reports would be robust and auditable,” Jin says.

“Watershed’s platform allowed us to grow our sustainability platform one step at a time and provided us with the expert guidance to bridge any knowledge gaps along the way.”

Heather Jin,
Global Head of Social Impact and Sustainability

Results

Rapid program development and measurable business impact

In its first year of having a sustainability program and implementing Watershed, Medallia:

• Completed its inaugural emissions inventory
• Established baseline measurements
• Developed comprehensive reporting capabilities, including for EcoVadis, CDP, and Medallia’s annual Global Impact Reports
• Made their 2040 Net Zero commitment
• Committed to setting near-term SBTi targets
• Participated in a Watershed-developed multi-company VPPA, contributing to the revival of a retired wind farm project

With Watershed, Jin and the team have strengthened Medallia’s competitive position and provided invaluable data and reporting to prospects and customers requesting it. Their work has impacted over 40 customer deals, some of which are the company’s largest. Overall, these deals represent $30M+ in annual contract value (ACV).

“I can confidently say that our sustainability work is critical to our business growth,” Jin says. “What was once a ‘nice to have’ is quickly becoming a ‘need to have’ to partner with our largest, most strategic customers.”

In addition to business growth, Medallia’s sustainability efforts have quickly gained the company recognition and ratings. In 2024, Medallia received its first EcoVadis Committed Badge, due to a 12.5% year-over-year score improvement. This improvement—and external recognition—has helped them build enhanced credibility with stakeholders both internally and externally.

With a baseline set, Jin and the team used Watershed to forecast Medallia’s emissions to ensure they’re setting sustainable goals. They’ve begun thinking about cross-functional levers, including business travel, supplier engagement, and renewable energy.

Armed with accurate data and realistic forecasting, Jin and the team can focus on targeted improvements, such as which suppliers to target and the granular asks to make of them, renewable energy projects for the regions where they operate, and ways to reasonably support essential travel for departments that travel frequently.

Enhanced reporting capabilities

With Watershed, Medallia’s disclosure process is streamlined, ensuring their EcoVadis submissions are efficient and quick and allowing them to generate exciting, comprehensive annual impact reports. And, with Watershed’s up-to-date frameworks and methodologies, they can stay compliant with regional regulatory requirements (SECR in the UK and California SB bills, for example).

And while they’ve had Watershed from day one of the program, Jin has still noticed efficiency gains from the platform’s automated data compilation, standardized reporting formats, and time-saving download functionality.

“Watershed’s reporting feature has probably saved me countless hours—not manually entering data or downloading files upon files is a huge win.”

Heather Jin,
Global Head of Social Impact and Sustainability

Building a foundation for long-term change

Medallia’s sustainability efforts have set the company up for lasting impact because of the team’s technology-first and long-term approach. The program has seen strong stakeholder engagement at the executive and cross-functional levels and benefitted from expert advisory support from Watershed. Armed with data, a reliable way to stay compliant, and ongoing efficiency gains, Jin and the team have set clear, strategic goals—and will continue to measure progress against them over the years.

Medallia's journey shows how the right technology partner can accelerate sustainability progress, achieving significant climate commitments while driving measurable business value in a short time. “The impact of our program underscores the importance of choosing a scalable, expertise-backed platform that can grow with our evolving sustainability needs and stakeholder demands,” Jin says.

In the future, Jin is excited to continue expanding Medallia’s sustainability efforts by improving data collection, setting more granular reduction targets, engaging more suppliers, and bringing all employees on board for the journey: “I look forward to seeing our teams come together to work on sustainability since it’s very much a team sport,” she says. “With our goals set and the team aligned on where we’re going, I’m excited for us to start implementing changes, seeing progress on our work, and reporting to all of our stakeholders with Watershed.”

“Watershed’s platform and expert advice helped us lay the groundwork for our sustainability work and will help us ensure we are on track to hitting our goals, reporting to critical stakeholders, and continuing to be an ESG leader in our industry.”

Heather Jin,
Global Head of Social Impact and Sustainability