Salesforce’s 2012 Sustainability Report is been heralded by environmental groups as a “high water mark” for the cloud storage industry.

According to the report, Salesforce has been able to increase its workflow while reducing emissions. The cloud storage provider says that it has lowered its emissions through a mixture of improved technology and green alternatives.

Salesforce reports that it was able to reduce its carbon emissions per cloud transaction by 20 percent in 2012. The company says it was able to do this while increasing overall transactions by 63 percent.

Among the cuts the firm made to go green included a switch to bio-diesel employee buses and an increase in video conferencing. In its report, Salesforce says that it has invested in video conferencing technology in an effort to circumvent excessive employee business travel.

While the company has made strides to go green it still expects to do more in the coming year. Salesforce’s goals for 2013 include encouraging energy suppliers to invest in renewable energy and researching future green technologies for the datacentre.

“I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished, but we have much more to do. As always, we believe in the power of sharing the model,” said Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff.

“It is my hope that this report goes beyond detailing what we are doing at Salesforce, and inspires others to work toward a sustainable world.”

Greenpeace has heralded Salesforce’s green outlook as a wake up call to the cloud storage industry. According to the group’s senior IT analyst Gary Cook, the early commitment by Salesforce to get greener should result in a net positive for the industry as a whole.

“Salesforce’s commitment sends an important signal to the rest of the sector that energy efficiency is important, but not enough. Salesforce and other leading IT companies recognize that they must shift their explosive growth in electricity demand to renewable sources of electricity,” said Cook.

“The transformation of Salesforce’s cloud to renewable electricity will not happen overnight, but the commitment and initial steps in its announcement show that the company intends to play a leading role in shaping a truly green cloud.”

This is not the first time Greenpeace has spoke up on the issue of energy consumption in the datacentre. Last year, Greenpeace slammed Microsoft and Apple for building datacentres in regions which rely heavily on coal power.