SAP recently announced its goal to become carbon neutral by 2025. Following this milestone and marking World Environment Day this week, SAP has released a new environmental policy, specifying its focus areas for environmental action.
World Environment Day was celebrated earlier this week in a worldwide effort that takes place every June 5 to raise awareness about environmental issues and support for the planet that sustains us. SAP is committed to play its part too and updated its environmental policy that provides a framework for how the company and its employees aim to contribute in our day-to-day operations.
SAP’s sustainability priorities are based around creating positive environmental, social, and economic impact as an enabler as well as an exemplar for sustainability. The Environmental Policy outlines a key part of this strategy by detailing our commitment specifically to environmental improvement. In line with our vision and purpose to help the world run better and improve people’s lives, it also concretely supports our commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically Goal 13, Climate Action, and Goal 7, Affordable and Clean Energy.
SAP’s key global environmental and energy objectives include:
- Achieve carbon neutrality in our operations by 2025
- Continuously reduce carbon emissions back to the levels of 2000 by 2020
- Increase number of electric vehicles to 20 percent of the corporate car fleet by 2020
- Reduce SAP’s energy consumption and increase energy efficiency
- Increase waste segregation, including e-waste
- Reduce water consumption
- Develop solutions and services to enable our customers to create positive environmental impact
- Enable employees by providing offers to individually contribute to the improvement of SAP’s environmental performance
What Is SAP Doing as a Company?
To achieve SAP’s global environmental and energy objectives, SAP is focusing on five key areas:
- Business Travel: committing to reducing the amount of business travel, particularly business flights – and where travel can’t be avoided, choosing environmentally friendly alternatives when possible,
- Corporate Cars and Commuting: improving impact of corporate cars and employee commuting through electric vehicles, carpooling, increased use of public transportation, and measures such as carbon neutral fuel cards,
- Facilities: using 100 percent renewable electricity for all facilities and data centers, incorporating sustainable building standards such as LEED and reducing energy use, water use and waste,
- Green IT: reducing and re-using IT hardware and designing products and services used by customers to be as environmentally efficient as possible,
- Procurement: engaging with our suppliers to reduce the impact of products and services we buy.
Employee Involvement
Building on the achievements SAP has reached on a corporate level in the environmental sustainability space, SAP encourages employees to become involved and play their part. To support them, SAP provides various tools including
- Sustainability dashboard: It all starts with transparency. A look into the sustainability dashboard helps managers and employees to find out where their biggest levers are. It shows how their location or Line of Business is doing compared to others when it comes to emissions, flights, employee engagement, women in management, business health culture index and other non-financial performance indicators.
- Virtual collaboration technology: The great thing about working for a global company in the 21st century is that technology can make faraway colleagues seem close. Face-to-face meetings are crucial, but you don’t always have to fly across the globe. SAP has set up telepresence, video conference, virtual meeting rooms and virtual meeting options to get face time in without stressing employees and emission levels through travel. These options also cut SAP’s operations costs, which is more financially sustainable for the company.
- Commute and travel sustainably: From a wide variety of electric company cars, special public transportation schemes, bike offers, to our carpooling app Two Go, SAP offers a variety of ways to commute and travel sustainably. It is often not only good for the environment, but more healthy and less stressful for our employees too.
- Integrate sustainability into daily work: In our internal company intranet and social media, we share ideas and tips for how employees can embed sustainability into their daily work. For employees in Event Marketing, we offer an event toolbox for sustainable events. For developers, there is a green programming course and there are further role-specific examples. In addition, employees can become engaged as sustainability champions
- who help enact sustainability by implementing initiatives across global locations and different lines of business.
SAP invites you — as a business person or an everyday citizen — to join in celebrating World Environment Day to do something to support the planet. Together, we can help to ensure a clean environmental future.
