Sustainable Lab Inc., one of the select tech startups that participated in the SAP.iO Foundry Tokyo Fall 2021 program, is known for its industry leading non-financial database ESG and sustainability reporting tool TERRAST β.
Through the years, SAP has been both an enabler and an examplar for driving sustainability goals within the company– embedding sustainability measures in its operational activities and outside the organisation by designing products and services that adhere to selected United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Since aligning with the 17 Global Goals in 2015, the software giant has been keen on the economic, environmental, and social impacts of its technologies and applications used by its customers. A thought leader in integrated reporting and holistic management, SAP has also set clear goals for its material non-financial indicators.
In Japan, SAP has recently partnered with one of its SAP.iO accelerator programme participants Sustainable Lab Inc., an AI group that creates a database of corporate environmental and social contributions. SAP Japan and the Japanese pioneer in data science for sustainability are joining forces to develop a service to support the realisation of “true corporate value”, in which non-financial values such as ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and SDGs are given much emphasis.
“We will support and accelerate more comprehensive and accurate ESG investment decisions for institutional investors and more data-driven SDGs management for corporate clients, raising the level of sustainability in society,” the fintech start-up stated.
Advancing ESG, Sustainability Reporting
Sustainable Lab offers ESG/ SDGs non-financial big data platform TERRAST β, a data infrastructure that provides a convincing solution for promoting ESG/ SDGs of companies by using original data design, data extraction technology, and analysis by machine learning. The joint partnership intends to integrate TERRAST β with several SAP sustainability solutions including SAP Sustainability Control Tower, SAP Product Footprint Management, SAP Responsible Design, and Production to deliver a comprehensive data analysis.
The collaborative partnership between SAP Japan and Sustainable Lab aims to bring the following benefits to SAP customers:
- Focus on improving management and assessment of non-financial values including corporate value enhancement and ESG/SDGs initiatives
- Provide more extensive data and multiple scenarios
- Empower customers to makers thorough, accurate ESG investment decisions and enhance SDGs management leveraging data
- Significantly contribute to achieving sustainability in society and encourage sustainability transformation
Eyeing the ESG Software Market
SAP CEO Christian Klein has recently shared in an interview that the company is exploring to expand its solutions portfolio, banking on its sustainability competencies in supply chain and procurement, to support enterprises’ ESG goals. He stressed SAP’s sustainability and ESG reporting tools give the German software enterprise an absolute advantage over competitors Salesforce.com Inc. and ServiceNow Inc. in the burgeoning ESG reporting market forecasted to reach $2 billion by 2030.
“You can only act on something when you have the transparency. We are using our existing solutions and we are expanding the data model to make ESG transparent,” he said.
“Software for salespeople, where is the carbon footprint? And what kind of carbon footprint do you create when you are doing pipeline management? You need the data. And the data sits in SAP systems,” Klein highlighted.
The SAP Chief also explained that the standard for ESG reporting will be defined in a system that operates the most exhaustive processes such as supply chain, manufacturing, travel, and expense. He stressed that these areas are where SAP has the right to establish standards.
