SAP Cloud encourages sustainability transparency with data
One of the main hurdles that businesses face is integrating sustainability into their supply chains. While this is a necessary step to reach goals related to emissions reduction, waste management, and build equitable business practices, the challenge comes as they wonder how they should incorporate environmental and social factors in their day-to-day.
Firstly, they must understand how to measure their impact, which means gaining access to the right information to formulate an effective approach. The majority of corporations understand this yet fail to execute due to lacking in other areas, such as data—the overwhelming amount of information to sift through in order to determine progress—and the analysis of that data to boil them down to insights.
In order to remain profitable while shifting to sustainable practices is one of the most complex challenges for industries, particularly the global companies whose extensive supply chains require them to assess and manage interactions with a number of stakeholders (i.e. upstream and downstream suppliers) to fully understand what is possible.
“Transforming from a profitable business into a profitable and sustainable business is hard. First, where do you find data you can trust? And second [how do you] change business processes to drive impact at scale?” Stephanie Benedetto asks, who is the CEO and Co-Founder of Queen of Raw, in a video showcasing SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises.
“SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises helps you address both so you can record, report, and act on your sustainability goals, focusing on what you can do with the data and processes you already have in place.”
Key strategies supported by SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises
Zero-emissions strategy
SAP Cloud helps businesses get the most out of their data, by understanding how to highlight the relevant information for their specific sustainability goals. While this can be a difficult endeavour as a number of companies contribute to their Scope 3 emissions, SAP aims to give its customers access to data from all corners of the business to determine the impact of their supply chains.
Supply chain waste management
Aside from emissions, the most critical environmental consideration for businesses is the waste produced from their supply chains. Again, a very complex measurement for corporations and, for example, a food supply chain or agricultural supply can seem almost impossible to measure. Better-using data allows businesses better visibility—as much as possible—of where their products come from and how those suppliers manage waste.
SAP’s solution combines local and global data to incorporate packaging requirements and declarations to deliver insights built around the compliance mechanisms that organisations are expected to meet in certain geographical locations.
Measuring inequality and actioning slavery
Highlighting the fact there are around 40 million cases of modern slavery recorded globally, much of this is hard to measure. While businesses may set good intentions for equity in their immediate operations, their value chains could be responsible for certain acts that compromise the health and wellbeing of others.
SAP offers corporate transparency of their external impacts, understanding how their actions in the short-term can encourage better working conditions for stakeholders further up the chain.
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