We will create solutions to measure, reduce, and report emissions

Derren Green talks, scans, and analyses carbon for SAP. His name says it
all. He is not only the perfect person to talk about SAPs green initiatives, he
also brings yet another shade of green to our green section!

Can you please elaborate on SAPs initiatives?

SAPs top environmental focus is climate protection. Our stakeholders have
confirmed that they consider climate change to be the most critical issue facing
society. As a member of the information and communications technology industry,
we believe that we can directly and profoundly impact climate change. We
recognize that the ICT industry contributes approximately 2% of the global
carbon footprint, a figure expected to reach 3% by 2020, according to a study by
McKinsey.

SAP is working to systematically reduce its own carbon footprint by improving
efficiencies throughout the data centers. However, we also recognize that our
products and services can impact the remaining 98% of the global carbon
footprintthose emissions produced by all other industries combined. In fact, it
is estimated that our customers emit a significant part of man-made global
greenhouse gases.

What are the carbon footprint reduction targets, and by when do you aim to
achieve them?

After analyzing its global environmental footprint, SAP announced its
commitment to reduce its total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the level of
2,000 by 2020. This means SAP will cut its emissions approximately to half from
its 2007 peak level of 5,04,000t CO2 in the next eleven years. This will return
SAP to its approximate year 2000 emissions level of 2,50,000t CO2.

The target will apply not only to SAPs own direct emissions, but also to
indirect emissions. The companys reduction plans are based on aggressive
abatement targets across direct and indirect emissions (scopes 1, 2, and 3 as
defined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol), allowing offsets to be applied only to
major indirect emission sources (scope 3) that are out of the companys direct
control.

Do you think that IT can play a phenomenal role in making the world green?

The time is just right for companies to embrace sustainability. The economic
crisis has already spurred businesses to review their processes. A logical next
step is to redefine business process excellence by embedding sustainability in
each action. Software that automates the best practices in sustainability helps
companies analyze, model, and measure their sustainability performance.

Technology can be harnessed to reduce energy costs and even emissions.
Increasing data center efficiencies, and using solutions that are optimized for
green IT can also reduce the carbon footprint. We also believe that IT led
innovation is a critical strategic enabler that helps companies contribute to
global sustainability by adapting and succeeding in a rapidly changing social,
economic, and environmental context.

What are the green technologies that you are investing in?

SAP measures its environmental footprint in terms of water, waste, energy,
and emissions at our facilities worldwide. SAP initiated its first GHG inventory
in 2008, and reports performance and progress towards its stated target in the
annual sustainability report. We are committed to improve the data quality
related to our carbon footprint. Our plan is to better define responsibilities
and internal processes for data collection. In addition, we will use our
internal performance management system and standardized solutions to maintain
data consistency. SAP runs its own technology, including SAP Carbon Impact and
SAP BusinessObjects Sustainability Performance Management to manage its
sustainability activities.

Carbon trading as a business opportunity is still very low in India. Do
you think that this trend is undergoing a shift?

The sudden boom of carbon market has greatly helped Indian industries to
cash in on the carbon trading business. India has become the preferred location
for carbon credit buyers or project investors, because of its strategic position
in the world today.

Responsible companies in India are already proactively setting their
operations on the path to the low carbon economy. They have a business approach
to sustainability, and are reducing emissions to gain long term agility and
competitive advantage.

Other enterprises are taking more modest steps despite the risk of greater
compliance costs and damage to brands and reputations in the long term. This is
because they seek more certainty and clarity from governing bodies on the
standards and financial impact of CO2 emission regulations before taking action,
and making capital investments to lower CO2 emissions.

What are your views on the carbon credit points and exchange?

Faced with overwhelming scientific evidence, there is little doubt that
climate change is the greatest sustainability issue facing the world. Left
unchecked, the lasting impact of carbon emissions and lack of water will pose
serious threats to ecological, social, and economic stability. At SAP, we
recognize the responsibility to improve our own internal efficiency, and also
the opportunity to help our 89,000 customers that emit one-sixth of the man-made
global emissions.

We have already set an aggressive carbon reduction target to be achieved by
2020. It reflects our belief that as a global company, we must demonstrate
sustainability leadership. With transparency in our operations, we are able to
publicly report achievement on our target; and in doing so, increase
accountability to our stakeholders. We are also delivering solutions and
services to enable the low carbon economy; and are innovating with industry
leaders, NGOs, customers, and partners to create the solutions required to
measure, reduce, and report emissions. We will ensure that our customers are
able to leverage regulatory mechanisms to increase their economic performance.

We support and encourage the government leaders to go beyond framing a
policy, and make a deal at COP15. This will ensure faster uptake amongst those
already taking action, and encourage businesses sitting on the sideline to start
looking at the opportunity in their hands.

Right now, there is no fixed opinion on whether hardware or software is
the way ahead for green. In your view what is it?

Both software and hardware contribute to optimizing green IT solutions. For
more than thirty-five years, SAP has identified, developed, and helped customers
utilize business application softwares, allowing companies of all sizes to
manage resources effectively and responsibly. The SAP portfolio helps reduce
carbon footprint. Further, the extended offering not only enables system
landscape optimization and total cost of ownership (TCO) reduction, but also
helps in business transformation, dashboards, and IT architecture.

This high value portfolio of services is complimented with the expertise of
our partner ecosystem.

• Technology partners that provide the most energy-efficient infrastructure:
  SAP is working towards optimizing hardware to run SAP solutions in the most
  efficient way. In addition, SAP is driving a benchmarking initiative together
  with its technology partners to agree on a common methodology for measuring
  power consumption, enabling customers to choose the most energy-efficient
  hardware setup. And finally, SAP is driving virtualization together with its
  partners to provide a computing infrastructure that is more energy efficient.
• Software designed for energy efficiency: We are increasing our efforts to
  easily leverage SAP software that offers innovative optimization technologies
  such as virtualization, and uses less computing resources. We are working
  towards determining the key energy consumers of SAP software, and their energy
  consumption behavior. Based on the results, programming guidelines and
  architectural design recommendations will be established and adopted for all
  the new and existing applications.

Through our solutions and services, SAP is striving to help companies
architect and deliver business processes in the most energy-efficient way
possible.

Mehak Chawla

mehakc@cybermedia.co.in