What SAP Learned from Using its Own Sustainability Solutions
Businesses that provide solutions are not exempt from the challenges they try to solve.
Sustainability can be tricky to implement, particularly for global businesses like SAP with more than 100,000 employees and 84% of total global commerce generated by its customers.
The business has been testing its own IT solutions to the limit to achieve its own sustainability goals and share lessons learned with its customers.
“Sustainability is an essential element of SAP’s purpose to help the world run better and improve people’s lives,” says Matthias Medert, Global Head of Sustainability at SAP.
“As both an exemplar and enabler, we aim to make our targets and purpose a reality.
“At the same time, by testing our IT solutions to the limit, we share the lessons learned along the way with the product development teams to continuously improve the SAP Sustainability portfolio.”
Sustainability challenges to overcome
Data collection, data management and regulatory compliance are just some of the challenges faced by both SAP and its customers in sustainability.
The company manages huge volumes of data including ESG metrics, material flows and carbon footprints that put high demands on IT systems.
Near-constant changes to regulations, like the European Commission’s Omnibus, require businesses to adapt quickly for reporting and compliance.
Sophia Leonora Mendelsohn, Chief Sustainability and Commercial Officer at SAP, explained on LinkedIn that the company decided to test its own systems to “keep pace with regulations without losing all our bandwidth to it”.
Without a firm grasp on all of the data, companies can struggle to make the right decisions when it comes to sustainability.
How SAP runs SAP
SAP’s sustainability solutions are built into core business platforms such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP).
“This helps ensure a solid data foundation and flexible integration of data sets from various business areas such as procurement, finance, supply chain management and product design,” Matthias says.
Sustainable decision making can then be driven by focussed tools like SAP Sustainability Control Tower, SAP Sustainability Footprint Management and SAP Green Ledger.
“By implementing SAP Sustainability Control Tower and SAP Green Ledger across our reporting ecosystem, we aim to elevate sustainability management to the same standard as financial reporting,” said Dr. Christopher Sessar, Chief Accounting Officer at SAP.
“These powerful tools will not only streamline and automate our ESG regulative compliance efforts but also generate actionable insights that drive strategic decision-making, accelerating our journey toward measurable sustainability outcomes and long-term environmental value creation.”
What SAP is learning
Early lessons, Matthias says, included the need to collect emissions data in a consistent manner and expand the scope of the project beyond carbon footprint data for a more holistic approach.
The IT architecture is organised into three layers: collection of raw data from various sources, processing and standardising data before planning and reporting that delivers insights.
Sophia shared on LinkedIn a main lesson learned: “Sustainability data is business data.
“The companies that treat it that way will be able to demonstrate real results in regulated and competitive markets”
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