For more than 35 years, SAP has been helping companies around the globe manage resources efficiently by optimizing and transforming their business processes.

Our sustainability solution strategy is to develop integrated sustainability offerings that help our customers achieve their sustainability goals and, through that, have a positive global impact on sustainability. Our current sustainability offerings, which are part of our SAP^® Business Suite software, help customers better manage, measure, and report on their corporate sustainability performance. SAP also offers solutions for governance, risk, and compliance that help customers meet reporting requirements and better manage risk.

Given rapidly expanding requirements and increasing pressure to find solutions to sustainability challenges, in 2008, we have identified seven distinct areas we believe represent the market’s greatest needs in terms of sustainability:

• Sustainability Performance Management. C-level executives need a single tool to set goals, monitor progress, and report on their sustainability initiatives–enabling them to steer board directives and achieve KPIs.
• Energy and Carbon. Gaining visibility into energy and then optimizing its use drives the carbon output of a firm, a top concern for plant managers, facilities managers, and, increasingly, for CFOs and corporate strategists.
• Product Safety and Stewardship. Product managers must extend compliance into the full product lifecycle. Protecting the brand means safeguarding the product along every step of the value chain.
• Sustainable Supply Chain. COOs and supply chain managers want to operate a lean, resilient supply chain that minimizes costs and carbon emissions.
• Environmental, Health, and Safety. EH&S owners, plant managers, and industrial hygienists need to adhere to environmental standards and ensure employee health and safety.
• Sustainable Workforce. Human Resource managers are facing increasing pressures to manage human capital to support growth while ensuring fair labor standards.
• IT Infrastructure. CIOs must reduce the cost and risk of computing, creating energy-efficient data centers and IT infrastructure as well as efficiently managing business processes.

Combined, these seven distinct areas offer a Sustainability Map that represents the needs of enterprises. We support many, but not all of these needs. Through discussions with customers and stakeholders, we will continue to both identify additional solution needs and develop a greater understanding of the prioritization of their requirements. We invite you to explore our current solution capabilities and our view of the broader, emerging requirements. Additionally, please guide the evolution of more sustainable business processes by joining our online conversation.