Retail Merchandiser

Retail Merchandiser posed questions to companies involved with RILA’s Environmental Sustainability and Compliance Conference to find out what can and is being done to “green” up the retail world. Jim Sullivan, strategic advisor of sustainability at SAP AG, approached the conversation from the supplier side of the picture.

What is your company’s core corporate philosophy on sustainability?

For more 35 years, SAP has provided customers with solutions that address sustainability-related issues, such as compliance and supply-chain efficiencies. Sustainability is a keystone of CEO Léo Apotheker’s strategic agenda and is one of the three key pillars of SAP.

In March 2009, SAP formed a new cross-functional sustainability organization to drive and coordinate all aspects of its sustainability efforts. This global team oversees all sustainability-related initiatives, from the creation of product solutions that enable sustainable business processes for customers to SAP’s own sustainability operations, including key social, economic, and environmental programs.

Managing sustainability performance has to be a dynamic and collaborative process that includes stakeholders, rather than an excluding, static monologue. This is a topic where all companies and individuals should realize that much improvement is needed to become truly sustainable and that sustainability is a never-ending journey.

How does it relate to the specific retail field in which you reside?

As one of the market leaders in business process automation, SAP is well positioned to help retail businesses worldwide operate in a more sustainable way, drive higher efficiencies, lower emissions, and promote more social business practices. We aim to perform better as a company and to build market-leading solutions. To do that, we need to listen, learn, and respond.

What is your company doing to promote environmental awareness and sustainability?

In 2008, SAP launched an internal corporate project to understand our ecological footprint at SAP facilities worldwide through comprehensive measurement of water, waste, energy, and emissions. Based on the results, we have efforts under way to target reductions to our greenhouse gas emissions/carbon footprint, increase awareness and engagement of employees and suppliers, and engage in public policy and advocacy efforts.

Collaborative dialog is important as business changes along with public expectations and priorities. SAP launched an online collaboration forum with our 2008 sustainability report and continues to learn a great deal from our stakeholder interaction.

As part of that forum, we’ve created features such as an interactive carbon dashboard (https://cw.sdn.sap.com/cw/community/sustainabilityatsap/carbon_footprint) where you can control the variables of our carbon strategy to see the challenges we face and the strategic choices available to us around energy, materials use, and transportation.

We also benchmark our performance and work with credible NGOs, government agencies, and third parties to document our progress. Our second sustainability report improved to achieve a B+ rating from the Global Reporting Initiative.

In addition, expansion of our US headquarters facility in Newtown Square, Pa. is designed to achieve platinum-level LEED certification and earn an Energy Star rating, with a 49% energy reduction compared to an average office building. Our SAP Labs Brazil recently achieved gold-level LEED certification.

What is the overall positive financial impact your efforts have had on your company?

We see three main market drivers that enable positive long-term financial impact for SAP: resource and operational efficiencies leading to cost-reduction, managing risk and compliance around disclosure and regulation, and increased brand value around innovation and new market opportunities.

We made significant investments in 2009 around 10 new high-quality video conferencing systems, a 60% virtualization rate of all new servers, and an increased purchase of renewable energy from 17% to 60% in Walldorf, Germany. We acquired Clear Standards, implemented solar technology at existing SAP buildings, and strive to achieve silver-level LEED standards for every new office building.

How are you getting consumers involved? Has this helped with consumer loyalty?

Public engagement and involvement is vitally important on critical global problems such as climate change, and SAP takes that responsibility seriously. We are proud to be one of five corporate sponsors of “Hopenhagen,” which is designed to empower hundreds of millions of citizens of the world to connect with their governments so they can influence the most important decisions affecting our planet. Find out more at www.hopenhagen.org.

As a business-to-business company, customer engagement around sustainability is becoming more important throughout the supply chain. Customers increasingly expect us to perform well on sustainability issues as a condition of doing business. To stay competitive, we must pay attention to the effect on brand and reputation as we improve operational efficiency and report on our progress.