The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed unprecedented business challenges of massive proportions– from labor shortages to global supply chain disruption– proving some organizations to be more resilient than others. More than ever, enterprises have recognized the social, economic, and environmental impacts of embedding sustainability in business strategies to thrive and compete in the post-pandemic era.

Almost three years into the global health crisis, The SAP Environmental Sustainability Report, conducted by the SAP Insight Research Center in 2022, revealed that companies are on their way to becoming sustainability talents. Of the 6,600 business leaders across 40 countries and regions across 29 industries, 60% shared that sustainability has a significant impact on long-term competitiveness and profitability of their companies.

In Hong Kong, one of the countries included in the survey, the majority (55%) recognize how sustainability directly affects business success, competitiveness, and revenue growth of a company.

Recognizing Value Behind Sustainability Investments

Over 140 respondents from the country, including C-suite executives and sustainability leaders, shared how sustainability plays a part in their business strategy and the importance of collecting quality data to measure the impact of their sustainability efforts on the overall business.

According to the SAP report, Hong Kong enterprises are aware of the significant role of sustainability in their financials. More than 40% said that environmental issues are either already affecting business outcomes or will do within five years. Almost the same percentage of the companies (≈40%) have sustainability strategies in place to bolster revenue and profit growth and develop new products and services.

In addition, Hong Kong businesses’ heightened appreciation of sustainability investments also requires better visibility through high-quality accurate data to ensure business success. With regards to environmental data, the survey showed that only 11% of the respondents are completely satisfied with what they have due to three main reasons such as the infrequent collection of data, incomplete data, and the lack of transparency in data calculation.

SAP Hong Kong Managing Director, Esmond Tong, said:

“Enterprising business leaders in Hong Kong realize that sustainability is a contributing factor to drive business growth while supporting them to be more environmentally responsible. It is no longer just a cost implication. Embedding comprehensive sustainability data collection into their operations not only facilitates data-driven decision-making but also supports companies to future-proof their long-term success.”

The last SAP NOW Hong Kong conference held in July 2022 emphasized the tech giant’s focus on helping companies become “Intelligent Sustainable Enterprises” for a future anchored on data-driven operations. Among the solutions highlighted in the event was RISE with SAP, a cloud solution that has received massive adoption globally to support many organizations’ digital transformation and sustainability strategies.

SAP has a wide range of solutions under the SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises portfolio to help businesses manage their carbon footprint, reduce material wastes and become socially responsible. One climate action solution is SAP Product Footprint Management which offers organizations insights on their products’ environmental impacts across their entire lifecycle for disclosure and internal product and process optimization.

Another sustainability solution from the software enterprise multinational is the SAP Sustainability Control Tower solution, which allows companies to enhance their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) transparency while improving business performance.

We, at InsideSAP, advocate sustainability practices into SAP projects through our own TRP (Talent Resource Planning) platform, InsideSAP Careers. Aside from championing contactless and paperless recruitment, we plant trees for every person hired, across every project, every month.

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Today, sustainability has become an indispensable part of corporate management, but many companies are still lacking the knowledge on how to start their efforts when it comes to sustainable practices. Fortunately, there are many different types of sustainability management programs in place that can help with this issue.

For example, SAP started its sustainability initiatives in 2009, with the aim of promoting its own initiatives to be an industry leader in sustainability and to develop specific products and solutions that assist in the development of sustainable consumption. The company has remained committed to its green agenda and is today seen as an exemplar for other corporations around the world when it comes to sustainable business practices.

Furthermore, the German tech giant has been working to develop a variety of projects over the past few years with the goal of achieving zero in all aspects of climate change, recycling, and inequality. The company’s efforts include a plan towards zero carbon emissions and developing a recycling economy that is geared towards zero waste. These projects are part of SAP’s more recent response to the concept of sustainability; their social responsibility strategy aims to create a more balanced world with a focus on building communities that are socially and environmentally conscious.

In recent years, SAP has provided many solutions to assist customers with their sustainability goals. One of the most popular is SAP Product Footprint Management which is one of the tools that can be used to calculate and manage CO2 emissions from a company’s products, both from within and outside the company, in an itemized format. 

Last May, during the SAP Sapphire conference in Orlando, the company announced a new direction for expanding the SAP Product Footprint Management. A supply chain managed by any given company typically spans across multiple industrial sectors, and consists of heterogeneous networks and software that are linked to implement an effective decarbonization plan.

Latest SAP Sustainability Solutions in Japan

SAP has been created and developed as not only a tool for an individual company to measure their carbon emissions, but also as a way for other companies to be able to measure these emissions in order to comply with the standards of the Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT) of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). The API for carbon data linkage is installed on SAP Product Footprint Management, intending to provide an interactive mapping to see how a company’s CO2 emissions are influenced by their suppliers and customers.

In Japan, SAP’s local subsidiary has announced plans to promote environmental sustainability in the workplace, focusing on reducing the ecological footprint of their headquarters building. In order to do so, they are evaluating how the company operates and what policies they offer. Additionally, SAP Japan is also looking at how to make SAP products more environmentally friendly and promote green initiatives at home and abroad.

Moreover, SAP Japan has announced their latest “Sustainability Service Package” which provides comprehensive support from the planning stages to the development and introduction of sustainability management solutions for companies. This time, the company’s service package offers complete support for a variety of issues faced by business such as “customer recycling,” “energy conservation,” and “waste reduction.” (InsideSAP Asia often references articles from websites in other languages to bring you as much information as possible.)

As part of the latest announcement, SAP Japan will offer a service for customers interested in building solutions with minimal initial investment. The quick start service provides a basic set of features that are designed to quickly provide value to businesses. This includes the SAP Product Footprint Management, which will help organizations document their compliance with sustainability requirements. The SAP Responsible Design and Production solution, which will help facilitate the transition of businesses to a circular economy through sustainable products, is also included in the quick start service.

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