BlackLine, Inc. (BL): PESTLE Analysis [Nov-2025 Updated]

You're seeing BlackLine, Inc. (BL) project solid, yet modest, 2025 revenue growth of 7-8%, guiding for $699 million to $705 million, and you need to know if that's a floor or a ceiling. The environment is complex: macroeconomic budget pressure is slowing sales cycles, but a massive, margin-boosting technological pivot toward Agentic AI and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is accelerating innovation. This PESTLE analysis cuts through the noise, showing how political risks like FedRAMP and economic headwinds-like the drop to a 103% net revenue retention rate-defintely map to the opportunities in their strategic SAP partnership (25% of total revenue) and the expected 21%-22.5% non-GAAP operating margin.

BlackLine, Inc. (BL) - PESTLE Analysis: Political factors

You're looking at BlackLine, Inc. (BL) and trying to map the political landscape, which is essential for a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company whose revenue relies heavily on global enterprise stability and government contracts. The political environment in 2025 is defined by US regulatory hurdles for public sector growth, a complex tax and tariff regime, and significant internal political pressure from activist investors.

The clear takeaway is that while US tax policy provides certainty for now, new trade tariffs and internal shareholder politics present the most immediate, actionable risks to management.

US public sector focus requires FedRAMP certification for new federal deals.

BlackLine is actively targeting the US public sector, a massive new market, but this requires navigating the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). This isn't a technical hurdle alone; it is a political one, as it requires a lengthy, government-mandated security assessment and authorization process to sell cloud services to federal agencies.

The company has stated its public sector business is 'progressing as planned' as of Q1 2025, but securing that final FedRAMP authorization is the key to unlocking major federal deals. Without it, the opportunity remains largely theoretical. This is a crucial political-regulatory checkpoint that directly impacts the company's projected growth.

Uncertainty from 2025 debates on corporate tax cuts and potential tariffs.

The political climate around US corporate taxation has seen a major, if temporary, resolution in 2025, but new trade tariffs are creating a significant indirect cost risk for BlackLine and its multinational customers.

The 'One, Big, Beautiful Bill' (OBBB), signed in July 2025, extended the lower corporate tax rate of 21%. This provides a degree of certainty for BlackLine and its large enterprise clients, allowing them to better forecast their financial close processes (which BlackLine automates).

However, the new US tariff regime, which includes a 10% universal baseline tax on all imports and higher rates like 34% on goods from China, is a major headwind. Here's the quick math: BlackLine is a software company, but its customers are multinational corporations that rely on complex global supply chains. These tariffs increase the cost of IT hardware, cloud infrastructure (servers, networking gear), and other components, forcing BlackLine's clients to tighten their IT budgets, which could slow down large-scale software adoption projects.

Geopolitical instability affects multi-national customers' reorganization efforts.

Geopolitical instability, from regional conflicts to global economic uncertainty, is a tangible financial factor for BlackLine. The company's global footprint means currency fluctuations and international trade disruptions directly impact its financials.

The most recent financial data confirms this risk: BlackLine reported a dollar-based net revenue retention rate of 103% as of September 30, 2025, which included an approximate one-point headwind from foreign exchange (FX) impacts. This single point of FX headwind is a direct political cost, forcing management to focus on internal 'strategic realignment' and re-engineering efforts to offset external global pressures. Simply put, global instability is making your customers' finance departments-BlackLine's users-more cautious about spending.

Activist investor pressure on the board to explore strategic alternatives like a sale.

The internal political landscape at BlackLine is currently dominated by activist investor pressure, a common theme for high-value SaaS companies in 2025. This pressure follows reports of a rejected acquisition bid from SAP earlier in the year.

The most prominent activist, Jana Partners, had built a stake of 1.15 million shares, representing nearly 2% of the company, as of June 30, 2024. This level of shareholder activism forces the board to defintely consider strategic alternatives, including a potential sale or a significant change in capital allocation strategy.

The board's counter-move was to authorize a $200.0 million share repurchase program, which began in Q1 2025. As of March 31, 2025, approximately $154.5 million of buyback capacity remained. This is a classic political action to appease shareholders by returning capital and demonstrating confidence in the company's valuation, thereby reducing the urgency for a sale.

Here is a summary of the key political-financial variables:

Political Factor	Key Metric / Value (2025)	Strategic Impact on BlackLine
US Corporate Tax Rate	21% (Extended by OBBB)	Provides certainty for large enterprise clients' financial planning.
FX Headwind (Q3 2025)	Approx. 1 point on 103% NRR	Directly reduces net revenue retention, pressuring international margins.
Activist Investor Stake	Jana Partners holds 1.15 million shares (nearly 2%)	Forces board attention to M&A and capital allocation decisions.
Share Buyback Capacity	Approx. $154.5 million remaining (as of March 31, 2025)	Board's political defense against activist pressure and alternative to sale.

BlackLine, Inc. (BL) - PESTLE Analysis: Economic factors

Full-year 2025 Revenue Guidance and Long-Term Targets

You need to know where BlackLine stands today versus its long-term potential. The company's updated full-year 2025 GAAP revenue guidance is a tight range of $699 million to $701 million. This represents a growth rate of approximately 7% to 7.3% over the prior year. That's a solid number, but it's defintely below the company's stated long-term financial model, which targets annual revenue growth in the 13% to 16% range.

This difference shows the current economic reality. BlackLine is still growing, but the pace is slower than its model suggests is possible in a more favorable environment. So, the near-term focus is on margin expansion and efficiency, with a non-GAAP operating margin projected between 22% and 22.5% for the full year 2025.

Macroeconomic Headwinds and Sales Cycle Slowdown

Honesty, the biggest economic headwind right now is the general macroeconomic uncertainty. This isn't unique to BlackLine, but it hits high-value software-as-a-service (SaaS) deals hard. When the CFO's office feels budget pressure, they scrutinize every purchase, lengthening the sales cycle (the time it takes to close a deal).

BlackLine management has noted they are navigating 'current market uncertainty'. This environment creates 'deal delays' and forces customers to push out buying decisions, which directly impacts the top-line revenue growth. The key action here is to focus on the value proposition of their platform-automating the financial close (record-to-report) process-to prove a quick return on investment (ROI) that overcomes budget hesitation.

Foreign Exchange (FX) Impacts

For any global software company, currency fluctuations-foreign exchange (FX) impacts-are a constant drag or boost. For BlackLine in 2025, the stronger U.S. Dollar has been a headwind. Management explicitly embedded a one-point revenue growth headwind from FX impacts into their 2025 guidance.

Here's the quick math: on a revenue base of nearly $700 million, a one-point headwind means they are losing about $7 million in potential revenue growth simply due to currency translation. That's a material amount that eats directly into growth rate percentages. You can't control the dollar's strength, but you can manage your hedging strategy.

New Platform Pricing Model Boosts Deal Size

The good news is that BlackLine has a clear lever to pull against these macro pressures: its new platform-based pricing model, which launched in January 2025. This strategic shift moves away from a simple seat-count model to one based on value delivered, like transaction volume or the number of connected ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems.

This model is working. The platform pricing has driven a 35% year-over-year increase in average new deal sizes. Even more impressive, for new customer bookings specifically, the average deal size has more than doubled, increasing by 111% in the third quarter of 2025. This is a massive improvement in sales efficiency. The new model is designed to decouple growth from a simple seat count and align revenue directly with customer value.

This is the future of SaaS pricing. It's a smart strategic move.

2025 Economic Factor	Key Metric / Value	Impact on Business
Full-Year GAAP Revenue Guidance (Latest)	$699 million to $701 million	Represents 7.0%-7.3% growth, which is below the long-term target of 13%-16%.
Foreign Exchange (FX) Headwind	One-point revenue growth headwind	Reduces reported growth rate, equating to approximately $7 million in lost revenue at the midpoint of guidance.
New Platform Pricing Model Impact	35% year-over-year increase in average new deal sizes	Drives higher revenue per customer and improves sales efficiency by aligning price with platform value.
Non-GAAP Operating Margin Forecast	22% to 22.5%	Shows strong focus on profitability and disciplined cost management amid slower revenue growth.

The economic landscape for BlackLine is a story of two forces:

• External Drag: Macroeconomic uncertainty and FX headwinds slow the pace of total revenue growth.
• Internal Lift: A successful pricing strategy and platform innovation that significantly increases the value of each new customer deal.

The clear next step is to monitor the adoption rate of the new platform pricing model, as that is the primary internal driver countering the external economic slowdown.

BlackLine, Inc. (BL) - PESTLE Analysis: Social factors

Strong, sustained demand for digital finance transformation in the Office of the CFO.

The social imperative for efficiency and accuracy in corporate finance is driving a massive, sustained demand for digital finance transformation. BlackLine, Inc. is positioned squarely in this trend, targeting a Total Addressable Market (TAM) estimated at a substantial $45 billion, which remains largely underpenetrated. This demand is not just about saving money; it's about giving finance leaders trust in their data, which is a significant social problem in the sector.

Honestly, the need is urgent. A BlackLine-sponsored study from April 2025 revealed that nearly 40% of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) globally lack complete trust in the accuracy of their organization's financial data. This lack of trust cripples strategic decision-making. Plus, around 30% of senior finance leaders are prioritizing investment in scalable technology this year to build future-ready financial operations. It's a foundational shift in how finance teams operate.

BlackLine's platform is an indispensable tool for the CFO's office. The company's full-year 2025 GAAP revenue is expected to be in the range of $699 million to $701 million, showing that this demand is translating directly into financial results.

Customer churn risk is rising, with the net revenue retention rate dropping to 103% in Q3 2025.

While demand is strong, a subtle but important social risk is emerging: customer churn. The Net Revenue Retention (NRR) rate, which measures how much existing customers are spending compared to a year ago, is a key indicator of customer satisfaction and competitive pressure. BlackLine's NRR for Q3 2025 (ending September 30, 2025) was 103%, a solid but declining figure.

This drop from 105% in Q2 2025 signals that customer expansion (upsells) is slowing and/or churn (cancellations) is rising, particularly among lower-mid-market customers. The total customer count also saw a slight decrease, moving from 4,451 customers in Q2 2025 to 4,424 in Q3 2025. This is a defintely a trend to watch, as customer retention is the lifeblood of a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model.

Here's the quick math on the retention trend:

Metric	Q1 2025	Q2 2025	Q3 2025
Dollar-Based Net Revenue Retention Rate (NRR)	104%	105%	103%
Total Customers	N/A	4,451	4,424

The company's products positively contribute to 'Jobs' and 'Creating Knowledge' in the finance sector.

BlackLine's core social contribution is the elevation of the finance professional's role. By automating manual, repetitive tasks like account reconciliations and journal entries, the platform shifts the focus of finance jobs from data entry to strategic analysis and business partnership.

For example, one customer, American Express Global Business Travel, achieved over 90% automation of high-volume reconciliations and expects to eliminate nearly half of its manual journal entries using BlackLine's solutions. This frees up significant human capital to focus on higher-value activities.

The company directly supports 'Creating Knowledge' through:

• Offering BlackLine University, a platform for live and web-based training on solution functionality and underlying accounting concepts.
• Launching Verity, its new Artificial Intelligence (AI) offerings purpose-built for the Office of the CFO, and achieving ISO 42001 certification for its AI management system.
• Enabling finance teams to gain real-time insight through visibility, automation, and AI.

This is a critical social factor because it addresses the skills gap in a rapidly evolving, technology-driven finance function.

Shift to remote/hybrid work increases the need for cloud-based, automated financial close tools.

The permanent shift toward remote and hybrid work models, a major social change since 2020, has only amplified the need for BlackLine's cloud-based platform. Manual, spreadsheet-driven financial close processes simply don't work well for distributed teams. You need a single, centralized, and secure cloud environment.

BlackLine provides exactly this, automating and streamlining mission-critical processes like Record-to-Report and Invoice-to-Cash. This cloud-native approach is a necessary enabler for modern, distributed finance teams. The company's 2025 filings also highlight the associated risk: as more individuals work remotely, the potential for security breaches increases, making a secure, centralized platform even more vital for control.

The company's technology is built on cloud adoption, and it's what makes a 385,336-user base across 100+ countries possible. This social trend acts as a strong tailwind, making BlackLine's platform a mandatory tool, not just a nice-to-have, for any large organization with a global or hybrid workforce.

BlackLine, Inc. (BL) - PESTLE Analysis: Technological factors

You're looking at BlackLine, Inc. (BL) and their technology stack, and the immediate takeaway is this: the company is making a decisive, all-in bet on Agentic AI and cloud optimization in 2025. They are moving past simple automation to deploy a true digital workforce, and that shift is tied directly to their gross margin targets. This is not just a product upgrade; it's a fundamental re-engineering of their cost structure and core offering.

Aggressive integration of Agentic AI capabilities across record-to-report and invoice-to-cash workflows.

BlackLine is aggressively embedding Agentic AI-a form of artificial intelligence that uses specialized, autonomous software agents to manage complex, end-to-end tasks-across its core platform. This is a critical step toward their vision of autonomous finance. The AI is natively integrated into the platform to deliver intelligence across the entire financial workflow, from the close process (record-to-report) to managing customer payments (invoice-to-cash). This is about more than just automating a single step; it's about deploying a team of digital workers to handle complex, multi-step financial operations, which reduces human error and accelerates the time it takes to get executive-ready insights. Honestly, this is the future of the CFO's office.

The core value proposition here is moving beyond basic Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to a system that can anticipate, decide, and act faster, all while maintaining the transparency and auditability that financial operations demand. This focus on auditable AI is defintely a key differentiator in the enterprise software market.

Strategic product innovation, including the launch of AI offerings like Verity and the Studio360 platform.

The company's strategic innovation in 2025 is centered on the launch of its new AI suite, Verity, which was announced in September 2025. Verity, derived from the Latin word for 'truth,' is a comprehensive set of AI capabilities built directly upon the foundation of the Studio360 platform. This platform provides the unified data layer necessary to ensure data integrity, which is non-negotiable for financial AI.

The Studio360 platform serves as the single source of AI truth, giving financial professionals a comprehensive view across the entire finance and accounting landscape. Verity's capabilities, which include intelligent insights and agentic experiences, are designed to create a new digital workforce for the Office of the CFO. The platform's ability to codify over two decades of best practices from over 4,400 customers gives its AI an unmatched intelligence blueprint.

• Verity AI: Launched in September 2025 to create a digital workforce.
• Studio360 Platform: Provides the unified data layer for auditable AI.
• AI Focus: Agentic experiences and intelligent insights across workflows.

Cloud migration to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is expected to increase gross margins from 80% to 85%.

A major technological and financial driver for BlackLine is the ongoing migration of its platform to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This cloud shift is a core component of management's plan to expand profitability. For the full year 2025, the company's non-GAAP gross margin was running at nearly 80% (based on Q4 2024 results). The complete migration is expected to drive this margin toward a targeted 85% in their long-term model. Here's the quick math: that 5-point jump in gross margin comes from two key areas: removing redundant cloud costs and allowing for greater platform optimization on GCP. While the migration is expected to be completed in early 2026, the efficiencies are already contributing to the margin expansion narrative in 2025.

This technical move directly impacts the bottom line, helping to support the full-year 2025 GAAP revenue guidance of between $699 million and $701 million, and the non-GAAP operating margin guidance of 22.0% to 22.5%.

Deepening the strategic partnership with SAP, which accounts for approximately 25% of total revenue.

The strategic partnership with SAP remains a critical technological and sales channel. BlackLine is an SAP platinum partner, and the relationship is deeply integrated, with BlackLine's solutions often sold as SAP Solution Extensions (SolEx). This partnership accounted for 26% of BlackLine's total revenue in Q4 2024, highlighting its material importance to the top line.

The partnership is continuously deepening, evidenced by BlackLine receiving the SAP Global Finance and Spend Management Partner Excellence Award 2025 in October 2025. This recognition underscores the success of the co-selling and co-innovation efforts. With over 1,200 companies using BlackLine alongside SAP, the company is well-positioned to capitalize on the massive S/4HANA migration cycle, where customers are modernizing their core ERP systems and require advanced financial close solutions.

Metric	2025 Fiscal Year Data/Target	Technological Driver
Full-Year GAAP Revenue Guidance	$699M to $701M	Strategic Product Innovation (Verity, Studio360)
Non-GAAP Gross Margin Target	Increase from ~80% to 85%	Cloud Migration to Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
SAP Partnership Revenue Contribution	Approximately 25% (26% in Q4 2024)	Deepening SAP SolEx and Platinum Partner status
Core Innovation Focus	Agentic AI and Verity Launch	Integration across Record-to-Report and Invoice-to-Cash

The next concrete step is to model the impact of that 5-point gross margin expansion on your own valuation models, using the mid-point of the 2025 revenue guidance. Finance: update DCF model with 85% gross margin by next week.

BlackLine, Inc. (BL) - PESTLE Analysis: Legal factors

Global data privacy compliance is crucial, requiring adherence to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF)

The legal landscape for cross-border data transfer is a constant, high-stakes variable for a global cloud provider like BlackLine. The primary mechanism for moving European Union (EU) data to the U.S. is the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF). BlackLine has certified its adherence to the DPF, the UK DPF Extension, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF, which is defintely the right move for operational stability.

This certification is critical because it allows data transfers without the friction of complex, case-by-case legal assessments. In a significant development, the EU General Court upheld the DPF on September 3, 2025, which gives the framework a stronger, though still politically sensitive, legal footing. Still, the risk is huge: a typical covered U.S. company faces an estimated $430 million annually in EU compliance costs alone, with potential fines reaching up to $12.5 billion per company annually if compliance fails.

Increased complexity and cost from new Standard Contractual Clauses for cross-border data transfers

Despite the DPF's relative stability in late 2025, the underlying complexity of international data flows continues to drive up legal and operational costs. The new Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs), which are the fallback for data transfers outside of the DPF, impose significant new obligations, requiring BlackLine to conduct and document Transfer Impact Assessments (TIAs) for certain data flows.

This is not an either/or situation; multinational companies must often use both the DPF and the SCCs to cover all bases, ensuring resilience against future legal challenges. Plus, new sector-specific regulations are piling on. The EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) became effective on January 17, 2025, and the revised Cybersecurity Directive (NIS2) is also now in force, both requiring BlackLine to incur significant costs to adapt its services and internal IT controls.

Products must continually adapt to evolving global accounting standards and financial compliance regulations

BlackLine's core value proposition is built on helping its more than 4,400 customers maintain financial compliance, so its platform must be a living document of global regulatory changes. The company's solutions are designed to embed controls directly into the financial close process, minimizing the risk of non-compliance or negative audit findings.

A major focus for the 2025 fiscal year is adapting to the complexity of the Global Minimum Tax (often called Pillar Two), which is reshaping international corporate tax and financial reporting. This constant need to update the platform to reflect evolving standards, from country-specific e-invoicing laws to new tax rules, requires a sustained, high-level investment in product development and legal counsel.

Audit Committee oversees legal and regulatory compliance, including internal controls over financial reporting

The Audit Committee provides crucial oversight for BlackLine's financial reporting integrity and its compliance framework. It's their job to ensure the company's internal controls over financial reporting (ICFR) are effective, especially given the rapid pace of regulatory change.

The committee is responsible for recommending the appointment of the independent registered public accounting firm, which for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2025, is PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC). The cost of this external validation is substantial and represents a clear line item in the company's legal and accounting spend.

Here's the quick math on the external audit oversight expense:

Fiscal Year Ended December 31	Audit Fees	Tax Fees	Total Fees to PwC
2024	$2,894,219	$88,384	$2,984,603
2023	$2,465,125	$80,500	$2,547,625

The Audit Fees alone grew by over $429,000 from 2023 to 2024, a roughly 17% increase, reflecting the rising complexity of global compliance and financial reporting. This trend of increasing audit costs is expected to continue for the 2025 fiscal year.

• Oversee ICFR: Review and approve the scope of the annual audit by PwC.
• Monitor Regulatory Risk: Receive regular reports on cybersecurity and data privacy risks from the Technology and Cybersecurity Committee.
• Ensure Independence: Pre-approve all audit and non-audit services to maintain auditor independence.

Action: Legal and Product teams should draft a clear, one-page summary of the DORA and NIS2 compliance requirements for the Audit Committee by the end of Q4 2025.

BlackLine, Inc. (BL) - PESTLE Analysis: Environmental factors

Here's the quick math: the full-year non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be solid at 21.5%-22.5%, but that's a tight range, so execution on the AI and SAP strategies is defintely the lever to watch. Your next step should be to model the impact of a 5% increase in SAP-driven revenue on the overall $705 million high-end guidance.

Corporate Governance Committee Provides Oversight for the Company's ESG Programs

The Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of the Board of Directors provides direct, high-level oversight of BlackLine's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programs. This structure ensures that corporate responsibility is treated as a strategic risk and opportunity, not just a compliance checkbox. The Compensation Committee also plays a role, overseeing workforce development and ensuring the corporate culture supports the company's values and strategy. This is a clear signal to investors that ESG is integrated into the governance framework, which is a must-have for large institutional holders like BlackRock.

• Oversight Body: Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.
• Focus Areas: Environmental, social, and corporate governance matters.
• Related Oversight: Compensation Committee oversees workforce and culture alignment.

Published an Environmental Sustainability Report in 2025, Aligning with Global ESG Reporting Frameworks

BlackLine published its environmental sustainability report in 2025, which details the company's initiatives and carbon emissions footprint. As a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider, BlackLine's environmental impact is primarily indirect, tied to its cloud infrastructure and employee travel. The report is explicitly designed to align with globally-recognized ESG reporting frameworks and standards, which is a necessary step for transparency in the capital markets.

This alignment is critical because it translates internal data into a language investors and regulators understand. It shows a commitment to using established metrics like those from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), providing a structured view of climate-related risks and opportunities.

Company Must Monitor New ISSB Disclosure Standards that Will Impact Customer Financial Reporting

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) has introduced IFRS S1 (General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information) and IFRS S2 (Climate-related Disclosures), which are rapidly becoming the global baseline for sustainability reporting. These standards focus on financial materiality, meaning they require disclosure of sustainability-related risks and opportunities that could reasonably be expected to affect a company's financial prospects.

For BlackLine, this regulatory shift is a massive market opportunity. Your customers-the CFOs and finance teams-are now facing a new, complex financial reporting mandate. BlackLine's core business is automating and controlling the financial close and reporting process, so the company is strategically positioned to develop solutions that ingest, reconcile, and report this new class of non-financial data alongside traditional financial data. It is a direct extension of their value proposition.

ISSB Standard	Primary Focus	BlackLine Customer Impact/Opportunity
IFRS S1	General Sustainability-related Financial Information Disclosure	Requires new governance, strategy, and risk management disclosures, creating demand for structured data collection and audit-ready workflows.
IFRS S2	Climate-related Disclosures	Mandates reporting on climate-related risks (physical and transition) and opportunities, necessitating the integration of new, non-traditional metrics into the financial close.

Operational Negative Impacts Noted in Categories Like GHG Emissions and Waste Need Mitigation

As a software company, BlackLine's most significant environmental impact falls under Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, primarily from its cloud-based services and employee business travel. While the company's 2025 report acknowledges and describes its carbon emissions, the mitigation focus centers on operational efficiencies and responsible sourcing of cloud computing power.

Mitigation efforts are concentrated on reducing the carbon intensity of the business model. For instance, relying on major cloud providers who have aggressive net-zero and renewable energy targets helps BlackLine indirectly reduce its Scope 3 footprint. For a company with total GAAP revenue guidance between $692 million and $705 million for 2025, this focus on low-impact, high-efficiency operations is fiscally sound. You need to ensure the company has contractual visibility into its cloud provider's renewable energy usage to substantiate its own environmental claims. The main operational negative impacts requiring continuous mitigation are:

• GHG Emissions: Primarily Scope 3 (cloud infrastructure and business travel).
• Waste: Office waste and e-waste from IT equipment lifecycle management.
• Mitigation Strategy: Improve energy efficiency in offices and leverage cloud provider's renewable energy commitments.