This month, SAP is expected to launch the next major leg of its sustainability strategy with the release of a new software offering from its Business Objects unit to be called Sustainability Performance Management. The product will primarily target C-level users, allowing them to easily track and act on a wide range of sustainability key performance indicators.
Sustainability Performance Management is just a piece of SAP’s broader push to become an acknowledged leader in global sustainability. Besides targeting C-level executives with such tools, the company is also focusing on operational managers with applications such as its Carbon Impact (formerly Clear Standards) on-demand service for managing and reporting on carbon and sustainability initiatives. And SAP is targeting financial managers with sustainability tools from its Governance, Risk and Compliance unit.
At the same time, SAP CEO Leo Apotheker has clearly placed a strategic emphasis on SAP significantly improving its own sustainability performance. Last year, the company created a new position, Chief Sustainability Officer. The title went to Peter Graf, whose team is overseeing SAP’s internal sustainability efforts while collaborating with SAP development groups on new, sustainability-oriented products like Sustainability Performance Manager. Recently, the company was named the highest-ranking software company on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
Clearly, SAP believes that these sustainability efforts and tools will pay off as manufacturers begin to get more serious about accounting for and mitigating their own carbon footprints and improving other aspects of their sustainability performance. Large SAP competitors such as Oracle and venture capital-based startups such as Hara Software are pushing hard in the same direction.
It remains to be seen, however, just how quickly manufacturers will be willing to invest in new software and equipment specifically intended to improve their sustainability performance. Despite the widespread focus on sustainability in the press, experts at AMR Research and elsewhere report that spending on software and services targeting sustainability and other GRC issues has lagged over the past two years due to the depressed economy.
Recently, I got some insights into why manufacturers may be holding off on sustainability investments. At Rockwell Automation’s Automation Fair event last month, Will McBride, a consultant at the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska’s North Slope, said in a panel discussion that the oil field’s three owners — British Petroleum, ExxonMobil, and Conoco Phillips — are dragging their feet on investing in an overhaul of the field’s energy-generation facilities and carbon-monitoring capabilities until Congress decides whether to pass some form of cap-and-trade legislation. Until that happens, McBride said, the oil field’s owners can’t place a value on carbon emission reductions. And, without knowing the market value of carbon emissions, they can’t come up with a meaningful ROI calculation to justify the investment.
My guess is that a lot of other manufacturers are in the same boat, postponing major investments in software and equipment for sustainability improvement until the regulatory and investment pictures become more clear. Once that happens, SAP’s efforts to become a leader in sustainability should pay off.
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