German software giant SAP is this afternoon holding the first meeting of its local Sustainability Executive Advisory Council (SEAC), including representatives from Telstra, AGL and Corporate Express, which is intended to steer the development of software tools to help companies go green and become more sustainable.
Dr Peter Graf, SAP’s chief sustainability officer and executive vice president of sustainability solutions, said that; “This is not about global warming or tree hugging…but about business and making it more sustainable.” Graf said that by working with SEACs around the world SAP hoped to learn more about best practice regarding sustainability and use that to develop software tools.
The Australian SEAC, to which 20 organisations have been invited, is the first formed outside of the US. In the spirit of sustainability, instead of flying participants around, the meeting is being held using AGL’s video-conferencing facilities.
Claiming that sustainability would have as far reaching an effect on business as have issues such as globalisation and the internet, Graf believes it can help businesses keep a lid on emissions while improving resource management.
Graf said that SAP’s 100,000 customers had a global carbon footprint measuring 5 gigatonnes – a sixth of all man-made emissions. “We have a big lever. We can make a big impact if we use it right,” he told iTWire.
SAP plans to integrate software tools into its existing business software suites that will help business track and manage their carbon footprint in order to become more sustainable over time.
While acknowledging the perceived shortcomings of the Copenhagen meeting on climate change earlier this year, and Australia’s failure to ram through an Emissions Trading Scheme, Graf said that there were four levels of any business’s sustainability business case. Legislative compliance represented only on of those levels.
While this had potentially been impacted by the lack of progress in Copenhagen, there were three other factors companies considered when building a sustainability business case.
These were, resource productivity (more effective management and use of resources); how sustainable products and practices could be used to build market share; and finally large companies such as Nestle, Nike or Coca Cola, were realising that “If they do not drive sustainability then they put their business model at risk,” said Graf.
He acknowledged that “Wherever you have legislation then you can accelerate the transformation,” but he argued that business did not need legislation in order to recognise the benefits of sustainability.
Graf also stated that companies should not get bogged down in the debate raging about climate change, and allow that to influence their approach to sustainability. “I wish people would focus on the business case rather than the scientific issue of whether there is global warming. There is a strong business case,” he said.
Graf, who has been officially in charge of SAP’s internal sustainability initiatives for the last 12 months, said that initiatives implemented during 2009 had led to a 15 per cent reduction in the company’s carbon footprint over the 12 months. This had realised EUR 90 million worth of savings.
The sustainability tools that SAP itself has installed in its business were able to calculate that saving for calendar year 2009 by January 10th this year Graf said.
Breaking down the reduction in carbon, SAP reduced its energy bills 7 per cent, cut printing by 25 per cent and reduced its airplane travel bills by 30 per cent (although Graf admitted that this had been impacted by slower market conditions during the global financial crisis). It had also increased the use of renewable energy sources to 33 per cent of the overall energy mix.
Acknowledging that the low hanging fruit was delivering the big savings first, Graf said SAP has set a global carbon target to return to its 2000 carbon levels by 2020, which represented a per employee reduction of 60 per cent.
To encourage employee engagement with the programme SAP has appointed 161 sustainability champions in the business, four of whom were based in Australia or New Zealand.
Source:http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/technology/37841-saps-seac-to-shape-sustainability-software
