We live in an industrial age linear model of “take, make, waste,” in which more than 91% of raw materials are not reusable and are therefore wasted.
This model also contributes to more than two-thirds of global greenhouse emissions, creating a vicious cycle of economic, social, and environmental inequality.
If we are to create a sustainable future, we must effect massive change.
Imagine a future that looks greener, cleaner, and more equal than the world we live in today. A world of zero emissions, zero waste, and zero inequality.
At SAP, we dare to not just dream about this aspiration, but to power the technology and innovation that is required to activate this bold vision into reality. Technology that can enable businesses to fundamentally rethink how they manage their carbon footprints, design new business processes that create opportunity rather than generate waste, and provide the transparency and regulatory compliance to hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards of economic, social, and environmental governance.
COP26 was the first UN climate conference that truly recognised the critical role of business in driving change, and it was the first Conference of the Parties that SAP attended. Now that COP26 is over, we have been reflecting on the key themes and emotions that the event provoked.
As part of this, we have partnered with two acclaimed Spoken Word Poets, Liv Torc and Chris Redmond, to draft a series of Poems With Purpose designed to cut through the pervasive corporate speak at COP26 and get to heart of the sustainability issues that businesses are facing.
Meet Our SAP Sustainability Ambassadors
Liv Torc is a spoken word artist and producer who plunders the vast caverns and dormant volcanoes of the human and planetary condition. A Radio 4 Slam Winner, a former Bard of Exeter, host of the Rainbow Fish Speakeasy and current co-host of the Hip Yak Poetry Shack. Liv is lead artist in Take Art’s long running social prescribing and poetry project Word/Play and she specialises in facilitating spaces for vulnerable adults. She runs Haiflu, the Hip Yak Poetry School, Hot Poets and the spoken word stage at WOMAD. In 2019 her climate change in-the-face-of-motherhood poem The Human Emergency went viral across the world.
Chris Redmond is a writer, performer and musician whose work often focuses on cross-media collaboration. A regular at UK music and literature festivals, he has performed on BBC Radio One, BBC Radio Four, Sky Arts, BBC Scotland’s Culture Show and Scroobius Pip’s XFM show The Beatdown. Chris is the creator and host of Tongue Fu – one of the UK’s leading spoken word and music shows, where poets, comedians and storytellers perform with improvised music and films.
Working with Liv and Chris, we have produced three poems around the subjects of sustainability, climate change and COP26.
The topics provide three distinct – but thematically linked – angles to the challenges we face:
Humanising the sustainability challenge for businesses
Business survival demands action on sustainability now
How businesses can manage the road ahead
To learn more about SAP’s ambition to move to a world of zero emissions, zero waste, and zero inequality, visit https://news.sap.com/2021/05/chasing-zero-launch/