SAP sustainability initiatives have been laid out across the organisation, as the company believes that its overall corporate strategy “must itself be sustainable.” By improving its own sustainability performance, the German tech giant aims to gain insights that ultimately help its customers do the same.
Building a sustainable business that would thrive in a post-COVID era — one that goes beyond the social and environmental aspects of every business operation — is just as crucial as surviving the global pandemic. As people continue to live more sustainable lives, the world sees a current trend towards sustainability as a major focus for enterprises.
With its industry expertise and global scale to take on climate action, SAP empowers organisations to transform their business models, customer engagement methods, and supply chains necessary to adopt a growth mindset with sustainability as a key priority.
In a recent interview with Computing, Gunther Rothermel, Senior Vice President and Head of Sustainability for SAP S/4HANA, and Anita Varshney, Global Vice President of Strategy for Sustainability for SAP S/4HANA, highlighted how the enterprise software giant is striving to change the notion that sustainability and profitability are mutually exclusive.
As both an exemplar and enabler of greater sustainability and equality, Varshney emphasised that SAP’s goal is to “make sustainability profitable and profitability sustainable.” She added that enterprises must incorporate sustainability into their core strategy to achieve this objective.
“This is the rationale behind the collaboration between SAP and Accenture on a series of guides with United Nations Global Compact which provide business leaders and their technology partners with a methodology to integrate and mainstream ambitious sustainability goals across business units by pioneering a performance integration approach that utilises enabling technologies,” she explained.
Building on their long-standing partnership, SAP and Accenture joined forces to help customers translate their Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) ambitions into tangible outcomes. The tech giants’ expanded collaboration accelerates the development and delivery of SAP Responsible Design and Production — a solution that enables businesses to keep track of new regulations, better control operational costs connected with downstream processing, and obtain a better overall view of material flows.
Reinforcing SAP Sustainability Strategies and Initiatives
Moreover, Rothermel said that a dedicated team headed by SAP’s Chief Sustainability Officer is working to incorporate sustainability into the company’s overall strategy and to push new sustainability initiatives across the organisation. He explained:
“Our CFO (Chief Financial Officer) is the sponsor for sustainability on the Executive Board, and we also have at least one dedicated senior executive in charge of sustainability in each Board area. These individuals form our Sustainability Council and are responsible for embedding sustainability in their business practices, such as by setting and reviewing relevant targets and implementing related programmes.”
“Our external sustainability advisory panel consists of expert representatives from our customers, investors, partners, NGOs, and academia. We have been leading the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index but we have to find ways to continuously improve and set higher standards,” Rothermel further detailed.
Meanwhile, Varshney pointed out that SAP strengthened the integration of its environmental strategy into its business strategy in 2014 by developing a ‘green cloud’ powered by 100% renewable electricity. She believes the move is a significant step towards achieving carbon neutrality and maintaining its commitment towards the RE100 initiative — a collaborative initiative of influential businesses working to massively increase corporate demand for – and delivery of – renewable energy.
In 2020, SAP also implemented additional energy and climate measures within its operations, ranging from opening a new office with energy-efficient design in Australia and New Zealand to utilising more efficient data center technology in Germany.
Furthermore, Varshney noted that there is a huge demand from SAP customers on having sustainability embedded into their end-to-end business processes.
“We are proud that we are already delivering on our customers’ asks, with a robust SAP S/4HANA product roadmap, embedded with sustainability innovations, beginning with SAP Product Footprint Management to be released in August,” she said.
SAP Product Footprint Management is one of the new sustainability-specific products unveiled at the SAPPHIRE NOW 2021 online conference. The solution aims to equip companies with the data they need to cut carbon emissions across their value chains while also allowing them to share insights with customers, suppliers, and business partners.
