Amid the press­ing real­i­ty of our world’s esca­lat­ing cli­mate cri­sis, and with cus­tomers of busi­ness­es in all indus­tries increas­ing­ly demand­ing more sus­tain­able prac­tices, ASUG has unveiled its first sus­tain­abil­i­ty-focused research report for the SAP ecosys­tem.  

The Role of SAP Solu­tions in Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Efforts 

As part of its efforts to meet this demand, SAP has devel­oped a suite of solu­tions — includ­ing SAP Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Con­trol Tow­er, SAP Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Foot­print Man­age­ment, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud for EHS envi­ron­ment man­age­ment — aimed at enabling cus­tomers to track vital data nec­es­sary to dri­ving sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives and goals. 

ASUG sur­veyed 85 of its mem­bers — with high lev­els of involve­ment in their enterprise’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives — about their organization’s approach­es to sus­tain­abil­i­ty and the chal­lenges they face in adopt­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty solu­tions. The respon­dents rep­re­sent­ed enter­pris­es across a vari­ety of indus­tries, includ­ing con­sumer prod­ucts, chem­i­cals, util­i­ties, and health care. Here are our top take­aways from the research, set to be released in full this April. 

The Pri­or­i­ty of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty  

While sus­tain­able prac­tices are steadi­ly becom­ing more of a pri­or­i­ty for enter­pris­es, adop­tion of these prac­tices can be cost­ly and time-con­sum­ing. Amid the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges of the last few years, shaped by the after­ef­fects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and infla­tion, com­mit­ting the nec­es­sary resources to ini­ti­ate effec­tive and wide-reach­ing ESG efforts can be dif­fi­cult for enterprises. 

How­ev­er, despite these set­backs, ASUG found that an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of respon­dents (91%) said their com­pa­nies are turn­ing their focus to sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives. Specif­i­cal­ly, 56% of respon­dents indi­cat­ed their com­pa­nies are ​“very focused” on sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and 35% report­ed their orga­ni­za­tions are ​“some­what focused.” 

ASUG also exam­ined the fac­tors that encour­age its mem­bers to adopt sus­tain­able prac­tices. Meet­ing cus­tomer demands (47%) and reg­u­la­to­ry com­pli­ance (45%) topped the list of report­ed fac­tors. How­ev­er, exter­nal demands were far from the only influ­en­tial fac­tors. The next three most report­ed options were: 

• Efforts to improve an organization’s rep­u­ta­tion (45%) 
• Sustainability’s impor­tance for a company’s spe­cif­ic indus­try (44%) 
• Sus­tain­abil­i­ty has always been an orga­ni­za­tion­al focus (42%) 

How Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Efforts Are Led and Measured 

ASUG also exam­ined exact­ly how respon­dents mea­sured sus­tain­abil­i­ty suc­cess and fail­ure. There is no sin­gle ​“cor­rect” approach to this report­ing, and approach­es can dif­fer based on a vari­ety of fac­tors, includ­ing com­pa­nies’ sus­tain­abil­i­ty objec­tives, prod­ucts, and indus­tries. Under­stand­ing how our mem­bers quan­ti­fy sus­tain­abil­i­ty is vital, as this data is used in reg­u­la­to­ry and com­pli­ance reporting. 

Over two-thirds (65%) of respon­dents said their orga­ni­za­tions track sus­tain­abil­i­ty KPIs and met­rics. Mean­while, 27% of respon­dents indi­cat­ed that their com­pa­nies are in the process of defin­ing which KPIs and met­rics to track. A far small­er share of respon­dents (7%) said they address and com­ply with sus­tain­abil­i­ty-relat­ed reg­u­la­tions and stan­dards dif­fer­ent­ly — such as cus­tom reg­u­la­tions and work­ing with third-par­ty orga­ni­za­tions to define metrics. 

Key Data Track­ing Points 

The sus­tain­abil­i­ty-focused research also exam­ined the spe­cif­ic data points orga­ni­za­tions are track­ing as part of their sus­tain­abil­i­ty efforts. ASUG asked respon­dents to select all the options that applied to their efforts. The top three selec­tions were: 

• Ener­gy con­sump­tion – 67% 
• Green­house gas emission/​carbon foot­print – 52% 
• Water use – 44% 

In terms of dri­ving sus­tain­abil­i­ty efforts, ASUG found that man­age­ment styles can vary from com­pa­ny to com­pa­ny. 44% of respon­dents said C‑level exec­u­tives lead and devel­op sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives at their com­pa­nies (com­pared to 25% who indi­cat­ed line-of-busi­ness staff should take point on such ini­tia­tives and 23% who said a cross-depart­men­tal project team should lead the initiatives). 

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Chal­lenges  

Despite the impor­tance of sus­tain­abil­i­ty efforts, all orga­ni­za­tions must over­come sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­ers to suc­cess. Our mem­bers’ most fre­quent­ly cit­ed chal­lenge was ​“finan­cial con­cerns,” includ­ing return on invest­ment, high costs, and main­tain­ing prof­it lev­els. One respon­dent told ASUG their com­pa­ny must see a busi­ness dri­ver — like reg­u­la­to­ry neces­si­ty or improved effi­cien­cy — to jus­ti­fy the cost of sus­tain­abil­i­ty progress. 

Orga­ni­za­tion­al engage­ment and buy-in were the next most fre­quent­ly cit­ed chal­lenges. Many orga­ni­za­tions cit­ed com­pet­ing busi­ness demands for sim­i­lar resources to those con­sumed by sus­tain­abil­i­ty efforts as a barrier. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, all enter­pris­es must ensure their work­forces are equipped with the knowl­edge and skills nec­es­sary to lead and main­tain suc­cess­ful sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives. While 44% of respon­dents said no knowl­edge or skillsets are miss­ing in their orga­ni­za­tions in this area, anoth­er 40% said they are ​“not sure” if such a gap exists in their enter­prise. Only 16% of respon­dents defin­i­tive­ly said their com­pa­ny lacks the skills and knowledge. 

In clos­ing these skills gaps, many easy meth­ods to spur sus­tain­abil­i­ty edu­ca­tion are avail­able to the mod­ern enter­prise. Over half (58%) of respon­dents said they are open to learn­ing via web­casts and webi­na­rs, while 48% said they pre­ferred to gain insights from learn­ing more about the chal­lenges and suc­cess­es of oth­ers via cus­tomer stories. 

Dis­cov­er more insights, news, and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty updates from ASUG here. Go here to down­load this research report.