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You will have to forgive me, but as a university student back in 1974, a few things really excited me. Seeing The Who and Led Zeppelin live and on fire was one. Another was the totally obvious mess that humans are making of our planet. So, I did a PhD on Air Pollution. Since then concern about the environment and sustainability has gradually increased. 46 years later Greta Thunberg and Sir David Attenborough have captured everyone’s attention on it. As Sir David has said “It is palpable nonsense to suggest that Australia’s bushfire crisis has nothing to do with climate change”. The connection between the two may be complex, but it’s there.
In 2020 it seems we have finally woken up to the reality of the mess we have made. Nobody can say that they have not been told! This includes politicians, CEOs, everyone. The media now often refers to our Climate Emergency. The current COVID-19 pandemic is teaching us many things, especially that we can change our lifestyles dramatically. It has proved that the World can prevent a catastrophe – if enough of us want to.
I know what you are thinking, “OK, but what’s this got to do with SAP”? Everything.
It is claimed that over 70% of all business transactions are processed by an SAP system. Indeed, SAP has over 425,000 customers worldwide. No business is a “good”, sustainable, business unless it knows and actively takes steps to reduce the environmental footprint that was made to produce it. Smart CEOs know that by looking through a “green lens” into their business they can reduce wastage and become much more efficient. This means huge cost savings and potentially more revenues from new green products and services. There are numerous examples out there, e.g. How to move sustainability beyond a top-level strategy and create tangible change for your company.
Take the organization that you work for today. Does it publish an annual Sustainability Report, or include it within a Corporate Social Responsibility report? Does your organization know what its environmental footprint is? Who is responsible for sustainability on the board? More importantly, what do you and your work colleagues think about how green your employer is? I would bet that they (and their children) care passionately.
In the UK many cities care and are busy publishing environmental targets, as they are fed up with deaths and health problems from vehicle emissions. In June 2018 in Australia as well, the Global Compact Network Australia launched the Australian Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) website. In March 2020 The Sustainability Practitioner Programme in Australia ran a special conference in Melbourne. See Sustainability Practitioner Programme in Australia.
Who would have guessed that even a Financial Services CEO is on the case, with a “fundamental reshaping of finance”. See Fundamental reshaping of finance.
The most impressive SAP announcement at the SAPPHIRE 2020 virtual conference was that SAP is adding a Green Line sustainability reporting capability to its ERP software, extending the Top Line and Bottom Line classic financial views of a business. Sustainability and Profitability were shown to be inextricably linked.
Did you know that for 10 years SAP has been active in the use of IT as a tool for improving business sustainability? Over that period SAP managed to reduce its own CO2 emissions from 9.2 to 3.3 tons per employee. Today SAP has 180 sustainability champions globally within its organization. SAP also offers a range of software and cloud solutions for sustainability reporting and projects. This includes:
- Environmental Health and Safety management
- Product Stewardship on-demand Network
- Sustainability Performance Management 4.0
- Product Carbon Footprint Analytics
The latter is part of the SAP Climate 21 initiative announced in June this year.
In 2020 we all have to get active, we have to challenge our employers, partners and customers about what they are doing in sustainability. This is too important for all of our children’s future. To quote The Who: “Won’t Get Fooled Again”…
Dr Derek Prior spent 19 years as an analyst specializing in SAP at Gartner and AMR Research, advising organizations all around the world on SAP strategy and best practices.
SAPTURE, feature women working in SAP and making it happen. To be featured, or to nominate someone to be featured, contact danielle@sapture.com.au
