In Short : Sustainability is often portrayed in a negative light, with news stories about climate change, deforestation, and pollution dominating the headlines. However, there are many positive developments and achievements in sustainability that often go unnoticed.
In Detail : Alarms over climate change have been sounding around the globe for decades – and rightfully so. Between increasing global temperatures, melting ice caps, and rising sea levels, there is no shortage of bad news about the climate crisis lately and the urgent need to make our world more sustainable.
Yet, if you were to look closer at any climate related issue that dominates the news, you’d also see incredible human ingenuity, innovation, and progress because of technology. While it can often get lost in all of the bad news about our warming planet, many businesses are quietly leading the way forward to make our world more sustainable using new levers of innovation that are now in their hands.
As government and business leaders, including many from SAP, our customers and partners, gather in Dubai for COP 28, it’s a moment to take stock of the progress that is being made, even if there’s still a lot more work to do.
One lever of innovation? Actionable data.
For far too long measuring progress against sustainability goals has heavily relied on averages and estimates. Financial and non-financial data has traditionally been kept disconnected, lost in spreadsheets, and not easily shareable within a company, let alone with partners such as suppliers or logistics providers.
It’s hard to lead the way if you don’t know which direction you’re heading or why.
Most of a business’ carbon footprint can be found somewhere along its supply chain. The lack of insights gained from real-time data can stifle even their best efforts to reduce it, change it or even identify it. Having the right data means understanding where the entire business stands by establishing a baseline everyone can act on at any given moment.
At SAP, we describe this journey as the move from averages to actuals. The more actual and precise the data is, the more control businesses have over their core financial, procurement, supply chain management, and human resources systems.
And as regulations create more intense mandatory reporting requirements, sustainability performance is now as critical to a business’ success as profitability and financial performance. In fact, the two are intricately linked.
Sustainability and social responsibility can no longer be considered a cost burden, but part of their business strategy. “Carbon accounting” is becoming more important than ever. It’s also becoming easier because of new solutions by companies like SAP.
SAP Sustainability Control Tower allows businesses to record sustainability metrics for compliance reporting. This creates a new mindset about treating carbon more like money, accounting for emissions with the same precision as finances. And with SAP software already running nearly 90% of day-to-day commerce in the world, it’s very likely the data needed is either accessible or already available in the SAP system – it just needs to be tapped.
Digital transformation and sustainability are symbiotic goals. And for businesses who aren’t afraid to spend on making their operations more sustainable, even a little can go a long way. Incremental changes can make a big difference over time. SAP customers are already seeing what’s possible.
For example, MSG Global used the SAP Sustainability Control Tower to produce their very first sustainability report. This allowed them to set targets to achieve over the next several years. And with SAP Concur, they now have access to better travel data, which has led to better travel management processes, which in turn helped lower emissions.
Companies want to act on their sustainability goals, and the only way to do that is by planning with actionable insights, forecasts, and concrete targets to achieve measurable impact. Data transparency unlocks the power to go beyond reporting and to provide insight into resource demand and allocation, process efficiency, and environmental impacts of operations so that businesses can take proactive action.
But perhaps the most exciting aspect of all this is to imagine the opportunities created by data to identify and analyze unmet, and often unforeseen sustainability goals.
Coming out of COP27 last year in Egypt, the sentiment was about setting actionable targets. As COP28 convenes now, it’s about executing to achieve those targets. One of ours is to achieve net zero emissions across SAP’s entire value chain by 2030. This is essential to making our business more sustainable and helping to create a healthier future for our planet for generations to come.
We can and must come together to achieve our climate goals. And when businesses succeed in reaching their net zero targets and creating real circular economies, their success will be the world’s success.