SAP Launches AI in Sustainability Whitepaper

The World Economic Forum predicts that AI could reduce annual emissions by three to six gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2035.

Diving into this, global enterprise software provider SAP has published its whitepaper AI and Sustainability at SAP.

The whitepaper outlines how the company uses AI in its products to make its customers’ businesses more sustainable, as well as how AI itself can be developed sustainably.

Delivering AI sustainably

SAP aims to reduce the environmental impact of AI, particularly its energy consumption, while addressing social and ethical issues.

Its plan is to enhance the energy efficiency of its AI offerings, which leads to emission reductions and optimising costs across the value chain.

All of SAP’s AI assets and processes developed under its direct operational control are optimised for energy consumption.

The whitepaper states that continued monitoring and proactive management of AI-related emissions will be essential to sustaining efficiency gains alongside declining costs.

SAP has created a Global AI Ethics Policy, which outlines rules of ethics for the development, deployment, use and sale of AI systems.

This is to ensure that AI solutions are created with social and ethical sustainability in mind, to avoid any potential economic, political or societal challenges.

SAP says in the whitepaper that it wants to create responsible AI data supply chains by engaging partners and its external network, so that models implemented by SAP are also sourced and developed responsibly.

Matthias Medert, Global Head of Sustainability at SAP, said on LinkedIn: “AI is reshaping how the world works. But as its impact grows, so does our responsibility to ensure it scales sustainably.

“As AI becomes more powerful, it must evolve within planetary boundaries and be guided by strong ethical principles.

“Together, we are rethinking how AI is built, deployed and governed, balancing performance with efficiency and innovation with accountability.”

How can AI benefit businesses?

According to the whitepaper, SAP Business AI can help automate the processing of internal and external data sources to transform insights into actionable strategies.

The report outlines how AI can be used to help executives in different roles, such as assisting CFOs and CSOs in generating sustainability reports in 80% less time than without AI.

It also mentions how COOs can use AI to build efficient supply chains through AI optimisation algorithms that provide accurate demand forecasts and improved demand sensing in production plants and warehouses.

Dominik Asam, Chief Financial Officer at SAP, says: “The future of sustainability lies in connecting carbon and financial data in the Green Ledger – managing cash and carbon with the same rigor.

“With AI, we can raise data quality, automate compliance across hundreds of global regulations and identify the smartest investments for decarbonisation.

“This is how we move from reporting sustainability to steering it as real business value.”

How Microsoft is building sustainable AI

One company aiming to advance its AI sustainability is Microsoft, which has launched its Community-First AI Infrastructure.

This outlines how the company plans to build, own and operate its data centres, while protecting local communities.

The plan involves covering electricity costs, replenishing water used by data centres, creating jobs for local residents and investing in local AI training.

Microsoft says that large-scale infrastructure expansion is vital to economic growth and everyday improvements in people’s lives.

Melanie Nakagawa, Chief Sustainability Officer at Microsoft, said on LinkedIn: “AI is changing the world faster than any other innovation in history.

“The speed of its adoption, the surge in its demand and the rapid evolution of its capabilities are unlike anything we’ve seen before.

“And like breakthrough technologies that have come before – including electricity, cars, aviation and the Internet – building the AI economy requires investments in new infrastructure.”