Salesforce employees are pushing back against the software giant's plans to enter the NFT market.
More than 400 employees have signed an open letter of protest, citing environmental and economic concerns, the Thomson Reuters Foundation News first reported.
Salesforce announced last week it plans to launch an NFT Cloud sales platform that lets users create and sell NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.
The NFT market ballooned to $41 billion in 2021. But NFTs have been widely criticized for their carbon footprint, as well as for their unregulated and risky nature. A new study found that millions of trees would have to be planted to offset the carbon emissions of NFTs.
The letter, addressed to Salesforce's co-CEOs, underscored how the NFT market could undercut the company's five core values of trust, customer success, innovation, equality, and sustainability.
"The amount of scams and fraud in the NFT space is overwhelming," employees wrote. It also highlighted environmental concerns and cited research showing the uneven distribution of the financial benefits of NFTs, according to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The letter also noted that employee blowback "could result in increased attrition". One employee told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that he threatened to quit if the NFT plan came to fruition.
Some Salesforce employees said in internal chats that they were shocked that the plans were announced just as the company debuted a major Super Bowl ad expressing a commitment to sustainability.
But other employees have voiced support for the plan, saying Salesforce can help guide its customers through the growing NFT market.
Salesforce said it plans to hold a "listening session" with employees this week.
