Drought conditions in much of North America and Europe are resulting in water restrictions and extremely low water levels in many rivers threaten transportation of supplies. Europe has been particularly hard hit during a summer of record temperatures and months of below-average rainfall.

Two major river arteries 鈥� the Danube and the Rhine 鈥� have already become almost impassible in some places. This is threatening transportation of grain and other commodities on the 1,800-mile Danube, which flows into the Black Sea. Also impacted are supplies of coal and diesel fuel carried by barge on the Rhine that are essential to the economies of Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

麻豆原创鈥檚 Take

Low water levels in Europe鈥檚 main navigable rivers threaten to exacerbate the supply chain problems already caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

As Richard Howells, a expert at 麻豆原创, noted, the ships and barges traveling down the Rhine are essential modes of transport for shipping products and materials through western Europe, and Germany in particular. It is estimated that 80% of Germany鈥檚 water freight is transported on the Rhine, meaning that millions of tons of goods are shipped via the river every year.

鈥淭ransporting goods is a聽24/7, 365 day-a-year operation, requiring coordination and collaboration between multiple entities,鈥� Howells said. 鈥淲hen a key mode of transport 鈥� such as shipping 鈥� is disrupted by low river levels, it becomes a logistical nightmare.鈥�

Either more vessels carrying lighter loads must be used so that they will sit higher in the water, or alternate modes of transport must be procured, usually at a higher cost. 鈥淭his will have additional knock-on effects, such as higher congestion on the roadways, with increased emissions that will impact already challenging sustainability goals,鈥� he warns.

Low river levels also have dire consequences for other forms of commerce. In the U.S., the federal government has stepped in after western states failed to reach agreements to reduce water use from the drought-plagued Colorado River, issuing cuts that will affect Nevada, Arizona and Mexico.

In France, the water in the Rhone and Garonne rivers is too warm to cool some of the country鈥檚 nuclear reactors, adding to a power crisis. And in Italy, agriculture is impacted by low water levels in the Po River, which feeds the country鈥檚 rice fields.

Pointedly, some economists fear the drought in Europe could tip a region already under stress from the war in Ukraine into recession.

Contact:
Paul Taylor, Editorial Director of 麻豆原创 News Network
+1 (212) 653-9607, paul.taylor04@sap.com

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) alarming was the latest reminder and wake-up call. It shows that we are on a pathway to global warming of more than double the 1.5-degree limit agreed in Paris and 鈥�,鈥� as Ant贸nio Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations, put it.

鈥淢ajor cities under water. Unprecedented heatwaves. Terrifying storms. Widespread water shortages. The extinction of a million species of plants and animals.鈥� This is how Guterres described the climate disaster toward which we are heading.

Amid global turbulence and with our minds focused on the unjustified war and human tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, it has been difficult to additionally take note of the latest warnings of the climate crisis that we continue to face. Yet, both crises put a spotlight on the world鈥檚 continued reliance on fossil fuels and the connected risks and threats. Accelerating the demand for and shift to renewable energy is clearly required. This is one of the investment areas that the IPCC points out.

This Earth Day, it is up to all of us to reflect on what our contribution to 鈥渋nvesting in our planet鈥� is and what we can do more — be it to foster the energy transition or to take other actions propelling us forward to a more just and peaceful world respecting people and planet.

On a very personal level, I have installed a solar system in my private home, which is also connected to the charging station for my electric car that I switched to since 2014. As chief sustainability officer at 麻豆原创, I have the privilege to work with our leadership, Sustainability Council, the growing network of sustainability-focused teams, our sustainability champions, and all of our more than 100,000 employees to leverage the company鈥檚 reach and resources to 鈥渋nvest in our planet.鈥� We team up to improve 麻豆原创鈥檚 economic, social, and environmental impact within the planetary boundaries — across our own operations as well as our entire value chain.

Some of our highlights moving into 2022 include launching the 麻豆原创 Cloud for Sustainable Enterprise to help our customers holistically manage their sustainability performance. We also enhanced the power and scale of our global sustainability ecosystem by adding new partnerships with Boston Consulting Group and Bearing Point,听 among others. Most recently, we formed with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation a Circular Economy partnership to deliver regenerative business and joined the under the leadership of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in order to foster cross-industry transparency on greenhouse gas emissions and corporate climate accountability.

Next to intensifying diverse, multi-stakeholder, and cross-industry collaboration to scale planetary solutions faster, we have also accelerated our commitment to net-zero at 麻豆原创. 麻豆原创 now aims to achieve net-zero along our value chain in line with a 1.5掳C future in 2030 — 20 years earlier than originally targeted. It鈥檚 bold. But I am convinced that it鈥檚 the right thing to do.

As always, it will require team effort, with internal stakeholders as much as with customers, suppliers, partners, NGOs, and many more. We are in this together.

This Earth Day 2022, I would like to acknowledge the power of collaboration. While I echo Earthday.org鈥檚 call on all of us 鈥�to act (boldly), innovate (broadly), and implement (equitably),鈥� I also want to express my gratitude to all people inside and outside the extended 麻豆原创 family and ecosystem for all that they do to shape a more sustainable, regenerative, and inclusive future. As important as it is to step up further, it is also crucial to recognize the hard work many already invest in our planet. Thank you! Let鈥檚 take this as inspiration for more to come and for more to join.

Daniel Schmid is chief sustainability officer of 麻豆原创 SE.

罢丑别听fashion industry聽is one of the most significant contributors to the climate聽crisis聽today.聽Between聽excess聽water,听dangerous聽chemicals, carbon emissions, and聽huge amounts of聽waste, the fashion industry faces a critical聽juncture. Will the industry seize the opportunity聽to change its course聽and positively impact the planet?聽Despite the聽huge task at hand,听creative and innovative entrepreneurs聽provide hope for聽a more sustainable future for fashion.

I had the privilege to聽sit down and聽speak with聽one such entrepreneur, Stephanie Benedetto, to learn more about how she is changing the textile industry and the world while encouraging others to have courage in their convictions and act on their beliefs. and read more about her story below.

From Rags to Circular Riches

In 1896, an Austrian man arrived on a boat on Ellis Island. As an immigrant chasing the “American dream” in the Lower East Side of New York, he started a business, one that generated profit while doing good for the planet. He repurposed old fabrics and furs brought over by other immigrants and transformed them into beautiful fashion garments.

One hundred years later, this profitable clothing business with humble beginnings would inspire the Austrian immigrant鈥檚 great granddaughter, Benedetto, to leave her job as a corporate attorney and become a fashion tech and sustainability entrepreneur. Benedetto returned to her roots and sparked disruption with the goal of building a business to change the world, scaling her grandfather鈥檚 efforts for even greater impact.

Meet the Queen of Raw

Stephanie Benedetto, CEO and founder of ,听is a聽visionary entrepreneur, creating opportunity out of聽the聽seemingly insurmountable challenges facing the fashion industry.聽Today,听 sits in warehouses and used for clothing ends up burned or in landfills.

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Benedetto聽wanted to聽eliminate the聽excess water, waste, and emissions that had become an聽inherent聽part of the聽value chain聽for clothing聽production. She sought to聽turn pollution into profit through聽the creation of聽a聽global marketplace聽that allowed聽users聽to聽list, sell, and buy聽deadstock fabric.聽This led to Queen of Raw, which聽offers聽new life to sustainable materials, including聽organic cotton, peace silk, faux leather and fur, and quality luxury deadstock fabrics.

Technology聽to Scale for Impact

Using supply chain software, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), Queen of Raw alters the linear economic model typical of the fashion industry and transforms it into a circular economic model, protecting the environment while driving value financially. At its core, Queen of Raw uses technology to drive sustainability at scale, repurposing textile waste so it can be turned into something beautiful.

But聽Queen of Raw聽seeks to聽go beyond creating a marketplace for deadstock fabric.

鈥淎 marketplace to sell waste is great,鈥� said Benedetto. 鈥淚t鈥檚 powerful, but it鈥檚 kind of just slapping a band aid on the problem.鈥�

So how do you get to the root of the problem to figure out聽how to minimize waste?

鈥淭hat鈥檚 where we leverage our incredible partnership with 麻豆原创, helping businesses capture data through machine learning, AI, and blockchain so they can act on the waste — and water — challenge at hand,鈥� said Benedetto.

Data insights and transparency provide聽a key聽piece of the puzzle when it comes to enabling more sustainable business practices globally.聽Technology, collaboration, and innovation make聽widespread聽change possible, and Queen of Raw provides聽an encouraging, real-life example of how聽business leaders can bring聽these elements聽together to marry聽people,听planet,听and profit聽at scale.

Reimagining Fashion, Textiles and Supply Chains

Benedetto demonstrates聽firsthand the incredible potential of聽technology聽to reimagine聽fashion, textiles, and聽value聽chains.聽Her聽optimism and creativity聽in the face of a water crisis and聽a聽waste problem聽provides hope for a better future.聽And she has strong reason to believe that her business and the commitment of other purpose-driven entrepreneurs can make a difference.

Since it began聽in 2018, Queen of Raw has already saved 1 billion gallons of water.聽By聽democratizing access to the resale technologies, Benedetto is聽empowering聽groups聽across industries聽to participate in the circular economy.

Together,听through creative solutions like Queen of Raw,听we can聽help聽foster聽a聽more sustainable world, one聽we can be proud of聽leaving聽behind for the next generation聽鈥� with fresh water to drink听补苍诲听clean air to breathe.

Scott Russell is a member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE.
.

George Leonard, , says, 鈥淚f we don鈥檛 get the plastic pollution problem in the ocean under control, we threaten contaminating the entire marine food web, from phytoplankton to whales. And by the time the science catches up to this, perhaps definitively concluding that this is problematic, it will be too late. We will not be able to go back. That massive amount of plastic will be embedded in the ocean鈥檚 wildlife essentially forever.鈥�

Clearly, the time for action is now. 鈥淲e must rethink, innovate, and implement at an unprecedented pace and scale to enable a thriving future for environment, economy, and society,鈥� says Thomas Saueressig, member of Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE, Product Engineering.

It can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the waste crisis facing the planet. Through education, the leaders of today can be empowered to change how we consume, how we operate, and how we do business.

That thriving future will not be built on the current disposable culture but instead by embracing the model, one in which waste is eliminated, resources are recirculated, and nature is regenerated.

As a leader in business software — including product design and manufacturing, supply chain and logistics, and product lifecycle management — 麻豆原创 has both the technology and the responsibility to help global enterprises to develop circular systems. Indeed, the company has already started this vital work by providing the tools to companies that are interested in the circular economy through .

With these business models already in place, a new open麻豆原创 course, , offers anyone — 麻豆原创 customer or not — a better understanding of how to apply these principles to their own business.

Specifically, three key principles are defined by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, an NGO dedicated to accelerating the adoption of this sustainable model:

• Keep products and materials in use as long as possible
• Design out waste and pollution
• Regenerate natural systems

With these three directives as a guide, the free on-demand course features pioneering experts in the circular economy, such as , CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and , professor of Circular Economy and co-director of the Exeter Center for the Circular Economy. It also features environmental activists and sustainable product luminaries, including , an ocean advocate and co-founder of eXXpedition, a trip that took 300 remarkable women on a circumnavigation of the globe to study the problem of plastics in the ocean. , CEO and co-founder of Queen of Raw, a marketplace for sustainable textiles, is a featured lecturer.

is more than just a course. It tackles some of the most important issues of the day and is intended to change the global trajectory on waste by bringing businesses into the process. According to Saueressig, 鈥淣ow more than ever, to achieve circularity, we must connect linear fragmented supply chains into unified, collaborative, and intelligent business networks that enable the reuse of materials.鈥�

At 麻豆原创, we believe that technology is an important enabler to driving a circular and regenerative economy. It鈥檚 not the whole answer, but a key part of the solution. We need organizations to come together to tackle this, so 麻豆原创 has launched the course to help spread the word and evangelize on why we must move to a world of zero waste — and move now.

The course begins October 4, 2021, and is free and open to anyone who wants to make a difference to the future of the planet.Content is available on demand. , and share it with your networks.

Participating in just a few hours of coursework each week provides a cutting-edge education in how to bring the principles of a circular economy to businesses operating today. In five weeks, participants can gain a new understanding of this pivotal concept for their edification and to share with friends and colleagues, and see how to apply this to their own organizations.

In addition, it鈥檚 a valuable opportunity for team building. There are many options for collaboration within the course, including a discussion forum as well as optional peer-graded teamwork activities to gain extra credits. Those who complete all coursework will be eligible for a Record of Achievement certificate.

Importantly, participants will also be engaging with a vital concept that is already helping to build a sustainable future through partnerships between 麻豆原创 and their clients. This course could be the first step on the journey to a better future for all.

Darren West is business development director for Circular Economy at 麻豆原创.

麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management is part of a new portfolio of sustainability-specific business applications that deliver transparency and measurement capability across the supply chain, allowing companies to move toward lower carbon emissions and more sustainable operations.

鈥淐ustomers want it, the world needs it. There is no time to waste for businesses to act more responsibly and sustainably. Sustainability goals are increasingly as important to business success as financial goals,鈥� said Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE and responsible for 麻豆原创 Product Engineering. 鈥淲hen companies embed emissions data into underlying business processes, leaders can drive real change by making conscious decisions across the entire value chain. That is what scales the transition to low emission pathways, and 麻豆原创 is uniquely positioned to drive this change throughout collaborative, intelligent and sustainable business networks.鈥�

By integrating data across all solutions that govern production processes with master data from business applications such as 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, 麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management can calculate the environmental impact of various production scenarios. For example, can choose its source for chocolate based both on the cost of the raw material as well as on its carbon footprint.

麻豆原创鈥檚 data-driven approach lets businesses embed sustainability comprehensively and gain actionable insights across the entire value chain to enable companies to transition to low-carbon business processes. Taking a differentiating approach, 麻豆原创 enables businesses to proactively identify the carbon impact at the beginning of the product lifecycle instead of reactively after a product has been produced. Moreover, 麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management not only equips companies with the insight to reduce carbon emissions across their value chains but can enable data exchange with customers, suppliers and business partners 鈥� driving transparency across a company鈥檚 scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 emissions.

麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management, a cloud-native solution built on , is designed to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions. Proposed governmental regulations designed to combat the harmful effects of climate change could cost businesses . A recent IDC survey showed linking financial and environmental indications in financial reporting, as well as reducing carbon emissions, are top topics for IT decision-makers.*

麻豆原创鈥檚 Commitment to Sustainability

麻豆原创 has been leading by example in sustainable business practices for more than a decade. In addition to being named the software industry leader in the聽Dow Jones Sustainability Indices聽(DJSI) for 14 consecutive years, 麻豆原创鈥檚 membership in the Value Balancing Alliance and the illustrates our commitment to integrating economic, environmental and social performance to drive business decisions.

鈥溌槎乖� has long had a strong, dedicated focus on its own sustainability operations. The launch of the 麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management solution, combined with the , represents a unique opportunity to bring together companies to jointly drive decarbonization across value chains and industries,鈥� said Marta Mu帽oz, senior research director and Lead Technology & Sustainability Practice, IDC EME.

To learn more visit the 麻豆原创 News Center and follow 麻豆原创 on Twitter at .

About 麻豆原创

麻豆原创鈥檚 strategy is to help every business run as an intelligent enterprise. As a market leader in enterprise application software, we help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world鈥檚 transaction revenue touches an 麻豆原创 system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers鈥� businesses into intelligent enterprises. 麻豆原创 helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want 鈥� without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables business and public customers across 25 industries globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, 麻豆原创 helps the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. For more information, visit

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*IDC, The Increasing Importance of ESG Principles for Enterprises,听Doc # EUR147475621, February 2021.

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鈥淭he world is on fire,鈥� according to and a recent with astronauts from the International Space Station. While many parts of the world deal with extreme heat, others struggle with extreme flooding. The says nations are 鈥渘owhere close鈥� to the level of action needed to fight global warming and the effects of extreme weather caused by climate change. The need for climate action is undeniable and opportunities for green house gas (GHG) reductions are within our grasp. Action to date has been slow, but it’s accelerating.

I see a surge in companies seeking to reduce GHG emissions coming. November鈥檚 upcoming , the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, is set to ensure that action around science-based target setting will accelerate. And I鈥檓 hearing from industry and government leaders that we will see unprecedented corporate climate action, driven by regulation and good business, that aligns with the .

麻豆原创ure from governments and consumers is mounting as climate change is unfolding before our eyes — faster even than scientists predicted. I鈥檓 watching the upcoming COP26 where the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation鈥檚 International Sustainability Standard Board (ISSB) will be launched in November. This robust, will adopt a climate-first approach and have a big impact on our customers.

Our customers are asking us to help them make the necessary change at scale. And we are ready to help them meet the requirements. But many businesses have moved forward without reassessing their business models or focusing on the underlying process, data, and governance changes that they must make to accurately measure, manage, and reduce their carbon emissions. Why? Because it鈥檚 complex!

Calculating environmental and social impacts across a company鈥檚 products and services and across the entirety of their life cycles is simply complicated. Yet supply chain emissions are on average . So merely focusing on individual operational emissions is no longer enough. Actually, it was always just a first step.

Understanding complex business challenges and optimizing existing business processes has always been 麻豆原创鈥檚 strength. The breadth and depth of our industry expertise, spanning 50 years, enables us to help businesses today to not just optimize, but reinvent their business processes, like no other company can. That鈥檚 what today鈥檚 challenges call for.

As we near our 50-year company anniversary, we build on that legacy today by enabling business to meet new challenges. We know that dashboarding is not enough. When we embed emissions data into underlying business processes, leaders can drive real change by making conscious decisions across the entire value chain. That鈥檚 what scales the transition to low carbon pathways, and 麻豆原创 is uniquely positioned to drive this change across collaborative, intelligent, and sustainable business networks.

These activities are interconnected and must be done together to achieve maximum impact. Our business software applications bring together materials, energy, and financial flows to steer businesses in a holistic way. These are not add-ons. We have found significant value from the interconnectedness of these factors over our decade of integrated reporting and steering, and are working closely with our customers through organizations such as the to accelerate this approach for all sectors.

We not only enable individual intelligent enterprises, we connect them to each other. We support the move from intelligent sustainable enterprises to a network of intelligent sustainable enterprises. This is the key to achieving real change for the planet. Just as GHG emissions go beyond the four walls of a company, efforts to reduce those emissions must also extend beyond individual companies, into the network of companies.

While every company can start by focusing on their own individual supply chains, those further down the path to sustainability can use the network as a pathway to scale. *, 鈥淐onsolidating data into a unified network means better access, streamlined analysis and the opportunity to more effectively turn insights into action.鈥� Systemic industry change needs the network effect, and it needs a spark.

The customer base that we currently serve covers 94% of the world鈥檚 500 largest companies which represents an immense capacity for real change at scale. Partnerships also help accelerate our product innovation. 麻豆原创 is , dedicated to enhancing transparency in corporate carbon emissions with the objective to ultimately decarbonize supply chains.

We emphasize the role of technology for the green transition and EU taxonomy as a founding member of . In addition to working with these established partners and others, 麻豆原创 is supporting sustainability innovation from startups around the world. For example, through our program, startups play a pivotal role in catalyzing innovations on sustainability across the globe.

We facilitated systemic industry change 50 years ago with our enterprise software based on our founders鈥� vision. Now we are doing it again in order to tackle the climate crisis. The business model innovation we drive helps improve energy efficiency across both conventional and renewable energy value chains, it supports decarbonizing through electricity generation and transmission such as green hydrogen, and it helps our customers to decarbonize their products and services, for example, by adopting circularity.

We have not slowed down on our promise to innovate in this product space throughout the pandemic. Just recently, we made our 麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management solution generally available to our customers to support them in monitoring, analyzing, and reducing emissions to deliver on their climate commitments.

We are building for the future. And I believe that future is coming faster than anyone even thought.

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE.

*IDC InfoBrief, Sponsored by 麻豆原创, Global B2B Collaboration Networks: Critical Enablers of Business Resiliency, IDC Doc. #US47857121, August 2021.

I grew up in Germany and can still remember when we started to separate our trash for recycling back in the 80s or 90s 鈥� our rivers and forests were suffering, and the environment was becoming a big topic. Even though we have seen progress on this front here in Germany, if you look at the global situation today, it鈥檚 clear we need to do more. It goes far beyond separating our trash. I sometimes wonder if I am part of the last generation that had the privilege to grow up in a world where natural disasters were an exception rather than the rule. Thinking about my own children, this is certainly a gut-wrenching thought.

I do not know if there is a guide through a slow-motion emergency, but the fact that climate change is already at our front door is inescapable. With the current state of the planet setting the context for us, talking about sustainability is talking about survival. It is about redefining growth, rethinking progress, and limiting financial risk. How we view our business or our industry will be a key driver in how well we proceed in creating a sustainability vision for our organization, both from within and without.

And . By placing sustainability at the front and center of our purpose, 麻豆原创鈥檚 strategy underlines the importance of technology, and specifically technological innovation, in enabling and accelerating climate action, hand in hand with our customers and partners.

Placing Sustainability at the Front and Center

With , we are uniquely positioned to create a lasting,听positive impact for our future generations. Leveraging 麻豆原创鈥檚 exemplary track record of managing enterprise resources for close to five decades, we want to collaborate and work closely with our customers to transition to sustainable business models.聽Our vision to enable customers to transform into intelligent, sustainable enterprises is based on our shared values in “chasing zero“: zero emissions (GHG), zero waste, and zero inequality.

By integrating sustainability data into end-to-end business processes across industries and value chains, we can have a significant impact and accelerate the pace of change needed. In close collaboration with our partners, customers, market makers, and standard bodies, we intend to jointly shape the future sustainability landscape that enables and drives new, redefined business process models.

The success of the in April this year clearly shows that our ecosystem is ready to join forces with us, making it clear that business leaders — in addition to their top and bottom lines — also want to focus on managing their 鈥済reen line鈥� for sustainable business success. This has become the guiding principle for the way we want to evaluate and steer businesses in the future.

Embedding Sustainability Across the Entire Value Chain

麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud鈥檚 sustainability portfolio addresses four dimensions, including climate action, circular economy, holistic steering and reporting, and social responsibility.

Through a highly differentiated set of products, we will enable organizations to assess and reduce their carbon footprint, increase resource productivity through circular processes, and run safer, sustainable business processes while providing industry-specific insights that combine operational and financial data across value chains, embedded in core business processes.

麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management has now been released. In the next few months, we will release 麻豆原创 Responsible Design and Production, already available as beta, and 麻豆原创 Sustainability Control Tower, and we will deliver innovations via modular embedded 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud services, based on an open, flexible architecture built on top of 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform. We will continue to expand across the breadth of our 麻豆原创 portfolio, bringing additional capabilities with 麻豆原创 Business Network and different lines of businesses, addressing most critical use cases in different industries to enable our customers to manage their environmental, societal, and planetary impact.

麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management is an embedded 麻豆原创 S/4HANA cloud-native application that enables our customers to optimize their business decisions by integrating footprint scores, preconfigured and flexible, in end-to-end business processes, periodically and at scale, considering the entire product life cycle. Our customers can gain insights by combining financial, logistic, and environmental data in analytics and can evaluate and derive footprints at scale by leveraging 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud data and capabilities as much as possible.

麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management is preconfigured, prescriptive, and focuses on business users (persona-based). It is based on 麻豆原创鈥檚 business data and application logic and is consistent in the calculated product footprints being integrated into the end-to-end operational processes covering all relevant business users in every department.

麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management is an answer to various challenges that our customers have encountered, whether it is the availability of emissions data to calculate product footprint across the product life cycle or the availability of calculation adhering to standards aligned to GHG Protocol ISO 14040. These indicate that high efforts are required for calculating the footprints and understanding how to use the results or the data gained from it to better optimize the way businesses are run.

Businesses agree that they need to calculate the footprint on a product level in the future, but they are unsure about how to go about it. They are still exploring different data and calculation methods. Our customers want to calculate the product footprints and then they want to analyze it — with their own tools.

To evaluate the environmental impact of the collected business data and goods movements and to be able to calculate footprints at scale, this data needs to be combined with emission factors. , a not-for-profit organization, is our first partner to offer product-related emission factor datasets from its database. Building on more than 20 years of experience in lifecycle assessment methodology and around 18,000 datasets covering global supply chains, the ecoinvent emission factor datasets can be, with a license, easily imported into 麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management.

In the future, we plan to enable other content providers as well so that our customers can use every provider whose data is standardized as per our applications.

It is important to establish a clear governance, ownership, and process for managing and reporting on carbon emissions. Clarity on governance will in turn drive the clarity on underlying data needs, as well as system requirements. Our partnership with the United Nations (UN) Global Compact and Accenture on is an important component of our sustainability efforts. SDG Ambition aims to engage leaders across more than 1,000 companies in over 40 countries over the next two years and draw greater focus on making sustainability core to business strategy.

With our technologies, we will enable our customers to accelerate their journeys to achieving ambitious targets, helping them advance the integration of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into their core business systems, thereby systematically working toward their .

Completing the Picture by Achieving Sustainability Multi-Dimensionally

奥颈迟丑听, we enable our customers to manage their corporate environmental footprint — air, water, waste, carbon — as well as their GHG emissions at a corporate level. 麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management captures product lifecycle emissions required by Product Standards, as outlined in .

To approach the challenge of climate change in a holistic manner and to expand it along further aspects, including water, energy, and land use as well as social dimensions, we need to begin at the core: 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud.

Having recognized and taken this major step, we plan to build on it and will expand to include and embed exchange emissions data into our line-of-business applications, including procurement, travel, and expense, to help bring a complete emissions transparency for our customers through 麻豆原创 Sustainability Control Tower.

As an example, companies can gain visibility into carbon footprint data throughout a product鈥檚 supply chain, bringing the ability to take sustainable supply chain decisions based on actionable insights. Product-related carbon footprint data, such as for production, material sourcing, or transport, from 麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management can be utilized in .

The issue of sustainability can sometimes be overwhelming and it is easy to feel hopeless. But because it is a global, complex issue, it has risen to the forefront, not only in policy conversations about how to make a change, but also in the business consciousness. There is a real shift happening now in terms of how we view climate change and how we believe we can turn concern into action.

Businesses are well positioned to lead on innovations and technology that will help slow down their impact on the environment and recognize that business can only succeed if society thrives.

While there is no ready-made, off-the-shelf answer to the questions our next generation asks us, we simply must make sure that what we do today gets us closer to where we want to be tomorrow — because what we save also saves us.

Jan Gilg is president of 麻豆原创 S/4HANA.

But across global boardrooms there remains a philosophical divide about the purpose of business. It is becoming more apparent that the concept of 鈥渟hareholder capitalism鈥� — putting corporate earnings above all else — is a diminishing notion. Resurgent is 鈥�,鈥� where business considers the broader interests of investors, employees, society, and the planet.

Top executives are prioritizing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities that support the interests of the broader group of stakeholders. Time is of the essence because the impacts of and loss are plainly obvious. ESG topics are affected by more stringent regulations as well as employee, customer, and investor scrutiny. It鈥檚 also increasingly clear that strong performance in these traditionally non-financial issues is a competitive advantage and . With companies making , from diversity to net-zero, it is clear that measuring performance will be essential to effective management, performance assessments, and collective achievement.

For years, companies have reported their ESG or non-financial performance. This kind of reporting is increasingly mandatory for listed companies, while private and smaller companies are increasingly reporting voluntarily.

The challenge for all of them, however, is the broad range of reporting frameworks and standards. More than 100 ESG reporting guidelines are in use, oftentimes conflicting and redundant, making it virtually impossible for executives, investors, and other stakeholders to determine credible progress or compare impacts across different companies and industries. Ninety percent of corporates and disclosures would be useful for financial markets and the economy. Consolidation around a universal, comparable set of reporting standards is urgently needed.

The World Economic Forum鈥檚 (WEF) International Business Council (IBC) asked a number of global accounting firms to agree on a set of ESG metrics that all companies can use as a 鈥渇oundation鈥� in their ESG reporting. Drawing from the range of existing widely used frameworks and standards, the were released last year. The initiative aims to accelerate the convergence of reporting standards. The framework uses a set of measures to value and report the business performance across four 鈥淧s鈥�: Principles of Governance, Planet, People, and Prosperity.

Today, have committed to the concept of stakeholder capitalism and support using the WEF metrics. Around 30 companies have already begun implementing them in their corporate reporting. In the few years ahead, rapid adoption and use of the WEF metrics by thousands of companies, as well as cooperation among other standards organizations and regulators, will be crucial to the widespread support needed to accelerate convergence.

麻豆原创 has committed to the WEF Stakeholder Capitalism metrics and encourages further global standardization and convergence in the ESG reporting landscape. We offer support to the initiative by including the standards in our own global reporting and also offering the framework in our core sustainability software solutions. Our hundreds of thousands of international customers, including 80% of the Fortune 500, are encouraged to implement the Stakeholder Capitalism metrics. Companies that already have established reporting systems can add the WEF framework, and companies just beginning to report can use the framework as their starting point.

The areas covered in the four Ps have been translated into a set of 21 core metrics, which are seen as critically important across industries. A number of additional measures are available to provide more detail and industry-specific information. The metrics are supported in our sustainability software solutions to help fast-track a vital 鈥渃ore and common鈥� reporting language.

Converging the overly complex world of ESG reporting and understanding the stakeholder perspective of how companies positively and negatively impact society is the first step. A vital evolution will be the widespread adoption of a value-to-business perspective and applying financial values to these traditional non-financial ESG actions. It is an important distinction between reporting the performance of an ESG metric and putting a monetary value on an ESG performance.

For comparability and holistic corporate management and decision-making, it is essential to monetize impacts in financial terms and include them in disclosures. This financial-driven view clarifies how these ESG impacts affect the company鈥檚 financial performance. Both perspectives are intrinsically related and are often referred to as 鈥渄ouble materiality.鈥�

Both perspectives are fundamental for understanding a company鈥檚 long-term value creation. 麻豆原创 is a founding member of the , which aims to standardize measurement and valuation methodologies to , act as practitioner鈥檚 lab and pilot the methodologies to create a unified voice for the industry.

The VBA and the Stakeholder Capitalism metrics are similar and share a common goal. In April of this year, the VBA and the WEF issued a joint announcement supporting a shared view on accounting standards.

Way back in 2013, a prescient Peter Bakker, CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), said that and that we needed to change accounting rules. Those changes are coming. We believe should be established globally. A 鈥渂alance sheet鈥� set of impact measures is not enough; we also need an impact profit-and-loss sheet.

With financial values assigned to these traditionally non-financial ESG measures, a new accounting standard is required. Organizations like the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation are now considering broadening their mandates to include sustainability issues. All major reporting standards groups and the WEF are part of a core working committee of the IFRS on a new accounting standard. Their approach is scheduled to be announced at the upcoming COP26 in Glasgow in November.

As industries and markets mature, they tend to converge and establish clearer standards, processes, and players. In the rapidly expanding area of corporate ESG measurement and reporting, we encourage the use of technology solutions to more efficiently capture, manage, analyze, and use sustainability data for better sustainability stewardship.

Companies across industries, supply chains, and geographies will have to focus their disparate systems to better support data collection and management, supplier connectivity, employee and customer engagement. This is essential for competitive decision-making and making investments in activities that support stakeholder capitalism.

When global business has more connected, validated, and accurate sustainability performance information, combined with a shared vision and common reporting and valuating language, we will have the power to achieve our most ambitious goals together.

Daniel Schmid is chief sustainability officer of 麻豆原创 SE.

I believe that companies that commit to their sustainability journeys today will be the ones that remain competitive and relevant tomorrow. To explore the link between profitability and sustainability in more depth, we need to consider the time frame, the way we define success, and how we measure a company鈥檚 value.

These factors accelerate the paradigm shift from profit maximization to value optimization.

Time Frame

As companies recover from COVID-19, business leaders must consider short-term financial profitability and maximizing shareholder value alongside environmental and social factors that could affect the business鈥� success in the future. It comes back to the question: 鈥淐an a company that is not sustainable be successful long term?鈥�

Fortunately, even in the short term, a clear link exists between sustainability and profitability. For example, the replacement of business travel with remote collaboration enhances sustainability and cuts down on travel costs. At 麻豆原创, a focus on climate action has contributed to a cumulative cost avoidance of 鈧�354.3 million in the past three years. However, we achieved 92% of this cost avoidance in 2020, when we were forced to rethink business as usual, illustrating the immense possibility for large-scale impact.

Nevertheless, sustainability can sometimes require investing today in the long-run profitability of a company and incurring costs that will pay off later. Companies already make many investments with the hopes of 鈥渞eturns鈥� at a future date, such as marketing campaigns or giving employees an extra day off to boost their motivation, improve well-being, and increase productivity. Employee training offers another example of an initial investment with payoff down the line.

In 2019, 麻豆原创 joined the Value Balancing Alliance (VBA) to better understand the entire value contribution of our business, which will be further explored below. According to the VBA, our global employee training programs were valued at 鈧�1.3 billion, but much of this payoff will be seen years from now through employee output, retention, and satisfaction.

Broadening the time frame through which you view business success can enable more strategic decision making that sets the company up to thrive not just today, but tomorrow and for years to come.

Redefining Success

Long-term profitability and sustainability present the opportunity to question historical definitions of business success. Profit maximization and increasing shareholder value alone will no longer suffice. The concept of presents an alternative way to define success, one that uses core business processes to drive societal change.

In Harvard Business School鈥檚 Sustainable Business Strategy concept, the 鈥渨heel of change鈥� illustrates how large-scale transformation occurs across entire industries, starting with shared value. When businesses 鈥渄o well and do good鈥� through legitimate, innovative practices, it can inspire industry-wide cooperation that alters consumer, investor, and state behavior. This encourages companies to adopt more sustainable practices, ultimately redefining success in a way that considers the entire value creation of an entity.

Consumer, investor, and state behaviors play a critical role in holding the private sector accountable for prioritizing shared value. Consumers and employees want to support and work for purpose-driven companies. Investors demand that companies disclose not only financial performance but also environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance to properly assess risk and make investment decisions. And governments increasingly implement climate-related regulations, taxes, and policies, as well as workplace safety procedures, extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes, anti-discrimination laws, and more.

For businesses, it will be critical to consider a holistic view of their performance, one that integrates positive and negative impacts on the economy, society, and the environment. Research shows that a .

Measurement

Redefining success to include sustainability requires measurements that capture this element of performance. For business leaders to make the appropriate decisions and set the strategy for a company鈥檚 long-term success, they need access to comprehensive data and metrics that go beyond financial measurements. This enables holistic steering and reporting, with the visibility required to mitigate negative ESG impact and increase positive ESG impact.

As mentioned previously, 麻豆原创 joined the VBA in an effort to transform the way businesses measure and value their societal impact. The VBA develops and tests methodologies that assign a monetary value to the impact of any decision, translating environmental and social impacts into comparable financial data. The VBA equips decision-makers with the knowledge to decide and act consciously.

Profitability is a necessary condition for sustainability but alone is insufficient. Business can positively impact planet and people, but not if limited planetary resources run out. Unfortunately, the earth鈥檚 resources do not align with earnings cycles or CEO tenures, and sooner or later we will suffer the consequences.

Paul Polman recognized this early on and launched Unilever鈥檚 (SLP) to help ensure that his business would be around 50, 100, or 200 years from now. The SLP shifted Unilever鈥檚 focus from solely meeting investor鈥檚 quarterly earnings to putting environmental and social impact top of mind. Similarly, Kering developed an to effectively measure its environmental footprint and convert it into monetary value. Utilizing this measurement tool provides a holistic approach to reporting that guides business decisions and respects natural resources.

Unilever and Kering know that the successful businesses of the future will integrate sustainability into core business operations today.

By adopting a long-term perspective, redefining success, and adjusting how we measure it, we can inspire a paradigm shift from profit maximization to value optimization, altering the status quo at our own companies and throughout the world. Innovation, business model transformation, and cross-industry collaboration will fuel this change. Wherever your business is today, this transition is a journey.

You may not be there yet, but it鈥檚 time to start by putting this question front and center: 鈥淐an a company that is not sustainable be successful long-term?鈥�

At 麻豆原创, we believe it cannot.

Daniel Schmid is chief sustainability officer of 麻豆原创 SE.

While the complexity involved certainly differs, both these businesses are after the same goal: flexibility to deal with unrelenting change.

But it鈥檚 not just flexibility! Today鈥檚 businesses must demonstrate high ethical and environmental standards. And they must verify that their suppliers鈥� operations — and even those of their suppliers鈥� suppliers — apply the same high standards. Flexibility must now also be sustainable, all along the value chain.

麻豆原创鈥檚 intelligent enterprise strategy is the foundation for that. However, our aspiration goes beyond achieving efficiency for the Intelligent Enterprise. We鈥檇 like to take enterprise software to the next level and move toward a sustainable future for individuals and businesses. And that leads us to business networks. Because what鈥檚 a sales order for one company is a purchase order for another — business today is global and hyperconnected. Achieving sustainable business practices means embedding sustainable practices across processes, end-to-end, and touching on all dimensions of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria.

Unprecedented demands from shareholders, employees, consumers, and investors are driving this push toward sustainable business practices and growing green economy jobs. According to the , the green economy is among the fastest-growing sectors, as measured by job growth, with a projected increase of 35% yearly worldwide.

So what is going to enable businesses that urgently need sustainable flexibility? Business networks offer the visibility, collaboration, and intelligence across the supply chain that are essential to attain green growth. Siloed, one-to-one connections between individual trading partners limit interaction and reduce collaboration between companies and processes. Cooperation across companies and various dimensions of the value chain is precisely what is required for designing, manufacturing, delivering, and maintaining products in ways that minimize carbon footprints, decrease waste, and help ensure social equity. Value chains then become value networks that together can achieve sustainability goals much better than any company on its own.

聽is the world鈥檚 largest network of its kind, combining ,听, and聽. By enabling customers to connect with their business partners and manage multi-enterprise commerce flow, we bring value to our 5.5 million trading partners in the network and move them closer to their sustainability goals.

Supplier Collaboration for Responsible Sourcing and Purchasing

Today鈥檚 sustainable enterprises want deeper insights into their supply chains, including the sustainability values of their trading partners. They want to align those of their own and their consumers. 麻豆原创 Business Network, along with our ecosystem of partner applications, creates the transparency needed to make decisions based on a range of criteria. And when the performance of existing trading partners doesn鈥檛 align with a business鈥� sustainability goals, shifting to new trading partners has never been easier. With 麻豆原创 Business Network, businesses can聽聽across industries and geographies.

Take, for example, a business that wants to increase the amount of sustainable packaging it uses. Our network helps it to search and discover packaging trading partners that aligned to commodity types, delivery locations, and quality certifications, as well as diversity and sustainability objectives and much more. Imagine accessing the sustainability profile聽of suppliers. Newly planned capabilities will make this part of the purchase requisition process, so procurement managers have supplier sustainability profiles at their fingertips.

Logistics Coordination for Accountability

The provenance of products and the circular journey of their component parts is something consumers care about deeply. The provides that transparency for more accountability. Where does the product come from? What does it contain? When was it packaged and where? How long was it on the road or in a shipping container? The material traceability option reinforces sustainability throughout the supply chain to create a trust network across material flows.

Asset Intelligence for Energy Waste Reduction

Reducing energy-intensive activity has long been the go-to approach for sustainable business operations. But 麻豆原创 Business Network enables next-level asset intelligence where savings are measurable. Suppose a community operates electrical vehicle charging stations across multiple cities, spanning hundreds of kilometers. These assets require maintenance periodically. They may even break down unexpectedly. Businesses can connect these assets with sensors, thus reducing the need and frequency for technicians to travel to remote locations. Digital twins make maintenance more predictable, adding up to real savings when assets are geographically spread out.

What鈥檚 Good for One Is Good for All

But even beyond our own digital commercial network examples, industries are embracing the network economy as a means for finding solutions to some of the most complex challenges of our time.

罢丑别听Catena-X Automotive Network, of which 麻豆原创 is a founding member, is creating a uniform standard for information and data-sharing throughout the network, which reflects the entire automotive value chain. Catena-X is an open, scalable ecosystem in which automotive manufacturers, suppliers, dealer associations, equipment suppliers, and application providers can all participate. The companies involved aim to increase the automotive industry鈥檚 competitiveness and sustainability, improve efficiency, and accelerate company processes through standardization and access to data.

A unified business network enables all trading partners to access combined intelligence in near-real time and apply it to complex problems together. When a network reaches across functions, across industries, across the world, companies have the power and flexibility to solve some of today鈥檚 toughest social, economic, and environmental issues.

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE leading 麻豆原创 Product Engineering.
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Oftentimes, when we talk about sustainability, we think about it in terms of the distant future. But looking at the past few years alone, it becomes clear that we don鈥檛 need solutions in, say, five years. We need them now.

It鈥檚 not about what we are doing to make the world better by the time our children are grown up, but about what can we do to make things better right now. What are we doing to make an impact by the time they learn to ride a bike, have their first day in kindergarten, leave school, and enter their first job?

We need to act now to ensure that our children have a sustainable future.

We might think that our individual actions don鈥檛 matter. But changes 鈥� both big and small 鈥搃n the way we live our lives can help reduce our own personal carbon footprint, and also encourage other individuals, businesses, and policy makers to act for the good of the planet. Because at the end of the day, everything counts. Every day we act, every step we take, every decision we make can help move the needle. And vice versa: Every step we don鈥檛 take today will take us three steps back in the future.

Today is Earth聽Overshoot聽Day 2021. It marks the date when humanity has exhausted nature鈥檚 budget for the year. From this day forward, we are using an unsustainable amount of the world’s resources. The exact date each year is calculated based on 3 million statistical data points from 200 countries, and the team at Global Footprint Network聽聽in more detail.

This year鈥檚 date is almost as early as in 2019, when it fell on July 26, after being momentarily pushed back in 2020 by lockdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic. So for more than 40 years, we have been using up our planet鈥檚 resources in excess. Our desire for every aspect of our lives to become better, faster, and newer is not only stealing from a planet that cannot keep up with the demands of almost 8 billion people, but also costing our future generations an Earth on which they can live and prosper.

COVID-19 Reset

The graphic above shows what is possible in extreme situations such as with the numerous lockdowns and restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Just a few examples: Due to beach closures in Florida, female turtles laid more eggs. In Japan — one of my favorite countries to visit — the Nara deer left the park to find food because the tourists that would normally feed them were no longer there. Air and water quality improved as tourism ground to a halt. For the first time in 30 years, Indians in the city of Jalandhar and the surrounding area could see the Himalayas.

These examples show that our planet could recover relatively quickly if given the chance. However, life in many parts of the world is returning to a new version of normal with more and more people receiving vaccinations. While this is good for humanity, it also has an impact on nature.

Our Responsibility

The private sector for sure has its part to play if we are to combat climate change. Businesses should not focus exclusively on profit maximization, but at turning things around, in the here and now, for current and future generations.

Without any doubt, sustainability is about more than protecting our environment. It is about ensuring the balance between economic growth, environmental care, and social welfare. That said, carbon neutrality is a major driver and key indicator of sustainability.

At 麻豆原创, we set our goal to become carbon-neutral in our own operations by the end of 2023, two years earlier than previously stated. The 麻豆原创 approach is of first avoiding, second reducing, and third compensating for emissions. You can read more about our goal for 2023 here.

But in addition to pursuing our own targets, we also want to help our customers become more sustainable. Because we are convinced: It鈥檚 time to build sustainability into the fabric of how we do business. We need to make it a standard dimension of corporate management just like productivity or growth.

奥别鈥檝别听聽to help businesses embed operational, experiential, and financial data and insights to drive sustainability at scale. With our sustainability portfolio, we support companies on their entire journey across the full spectrum of sustainability 鈥� from carbon neutrality to social impact and economic progress.

Additionally, we will drive multi-year innovation roadmaps to ultimately provide our customers with end-to-end visibility around sustainability, integrated into their core business processes.聽To get to our vision of聽, we must act now with the goal of zero waste, zero emissions, and zero inequality.

Given the significance of global supply chains in tackling sustainability, the 麻豆原创 community truly has the power to protect our planet and create a future our children want to be part of. So, let鈥檚 give our planet the chance to recover and #MoveTheDate together.

Christian Klein is CEO of 麻豆原创 SE.
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Connecting financial and non-financial metrics is key to comprehensively analyzing all dimensions of a company鈥檚 performance and working toward their integration and harmonization. This in turn provides the foundation for better balanced management decisions and drives business success while creating a positive impact on people and the planet.

In the 15th century,听, an Italian monk, musician, and mathematician, discovered the concept of double-entry bookkeeping, which became the basis of modern accounting. However, over 500 years later, accounting could use an addendum. Today, tracking and reporting must include economic performance along with societal and environmental performance. Moving beyond traditional balance sheets and profit and loss statements provides meaningful and holistic insight into the total value creation of a business entity.

These demands make sustainability a CFO imperative. Globally, business leaders are recognizing that a separate sustainability strategy will no longer suffice. Instead, companies must ensure their entire business strategy is sustainable. Companies that embed sustainability into core business processes consistently聽聽their competitors and will only continue to do so in the future. Measuring business sustainability enables companies to gain higher profits which result from greater cost efficiency and revenue growth by addressing economic, social, and environmental considerations in a holistic, integrated manner.

The business community sees value in considering聽聽issues in strategic and operational decision making, but it still needs to execute on this vision. The journey has just begun.

Digital technologies support and accelerate this journey by playing a fundamental role in delivering the visibility and velocity required to inform and drive better business decisions through embedded, validated, real-time data.

Visibility聽into relevant metrics across every line of business equips companies with the insights required to comply with new regulations, safeguard their license to operate, meet increasing stakeholder expectations, cut costs, and recognize opportunities for innovation and business transformation.

The deployment of digital technology solutions also enables the聽velocity required to execute large-scale transformations, based on holistic steering and reporting. Technology鈥檚 ability to quickly and effectively measure and value green and social dimensions will help accelerate the shift towards an inclusive, low-carbon, and circular economy.

Moving forward, a digital transformation architecture and road map that enables sustainability efforts will become fundamental to every company鈥檚 business strategy.

To help our customers power organization-wide sustainability practices in reporting, 麻豆原创 recently announced a portfolio of new sustainability-specific products, including the聽麻豆原创 Sustainability Control Tower solution, which will enable companies to report against metrics, such as the , supported by World Economic Forum (WEF) Metrics,听, and more. This solution offers a greater degree of granularity in reporting and a higher level of transparency around ESG performance. End-to-end聽visibility and real-time data provide business leaders with insights to identify levers and options for driving corrective and enhanced action that take financial, social, and environmental valuation into account.

At 麻豆原创, we have been measuring our progress holistically and connecting financial and non-financial data since 2012, when we merged our sustainability and annual reports into an integrated report. However, full visibility into the entire value chain and the capability to scale across business networks requires an actionable and聽.

In 2019, this recognition inspired 麻豆原创 to become a聽founding member of the Value Balancing Alliance (VBA) and contribute our experience, along with 20 other like-minded, multinational companies, to shape a 鈥渘ew accounting鈥� system. The alliance aims to develop a standard for measuring, monetizing, and comparing the value of contributions made by businesses to the economy, society, and the environment. Assigning a monetary value or a 鈥渟ocial cost鈥� to various categories creates a comparable, inclusive data set that can guide business leaders as they make strategic decisions to impact long-term sustainable change.

The first pilot program took place last year and included 11 companies across seven industries. At 麻豆原创 we , testing specific indicators, and translating non-financial metrics into comparable financial terms. Based on 麻豆原创鈥檚 2019 data, we found the negative impact of our GHG emissions was monetized at 鈧�182 million, and a positive impact from our global employee training programs was valued at 鈧�1.3 billion. Such insights allow us to compare the potential costs and benefits of climate initiatives and training programs. The results of the pilot program provide evidence that the VBA can help companies optimize their value chains, achieve better business outcomes, and enable information sharing that supports large scale systemic change across regions and industries.

As a global community, we have reached a tipping point. The successful businesses of tomorrow — those equipped to navigate the world鈥檚 most pressing challenges — will consider financial and non-financial metrics before making critical business decisions. Through the power of digital technologies, we can ensure the visibility and velocity required to effectively expand the scope of corporate reporting and execute sustainable business steering at scale. With an updated approach to holistic steering and reporting, one that considers ESG metrics alongside traditional financial metrics, business, society, and the planet can all emerge victorious.

Luka Mucic is chief financial officer and a member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE.
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By continuously evolving our enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, we are helping our customers modernize business processes and helping them adjust to a new IT reality at the same time. As I鈥檝e said before, this reality combines flexibility, agility, and choice for our customers: Flexibility through a modular yet integrated approach to enterprise software, agility through business processes that can be adapted as needed, and choice for customers to operate their systems on the infrastructure of their choice. And we can certainly add the need for collaborative, networked, and sustainable solutions here.

One of my favorite examples of how 麻豆原创 is helping customers adapt and modernize their business processes comes from the retail sector and relates to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. E-commerce has surged during the pandemic as consumers faced lockdowns and sought the relative safety of online shopping. This surge in e-commerce has had dramatic implications for traditional retailers that have had to pivot quickly from primarily in-store sales to online platforms but have also had to deal with much higher levels of returns.

Consumers are more likely to return something when bought online compared to offline purchases. This is particularly true in fashion retail because there is a much higher probability that a particular size doesn鈥檛 fit or the color is not quite what the consumer was expecting. Online customers also often bracket-purchase — ordering several similar items or sizes to ensure that one is the right fit and return the others.

This represents a significant problem for traditional retailers that were not used to dealing with such high levels of returns and that, in the past, often outsourced the handling of returns. Returns — or reverse logistics, as the process is sometimes called — is a costly and time-consuming part of the daily life of the supply chain.

Companies need to make decisions on where to return the stock, how to handle the stock when returned, and whether the customer will receive a refund or a replacement. Typically, these operations were optimized for time in order to keep customers happy, even if this meant destroying returned goods.

Retailers know that the return experience can break or build customer loyalty and trust, and that鈥檚 why they aim to process returns and provide refunds to customers as quickly as possible. But destroying — and even storing — returned items is potentially bad for the environment and represents a monetary loss. According to UK鈥檚 online retail association, .

Recognizing these problems, 麻豆原创 has developed an innovative solution that we call 麻豆原创 Intelligent Returns Management, a returns optimization solution that guides products from customers鈥� hands to the final dispositioning steps, maximizing both the customer experience and company margins. It uses routing and dispositioning decisions driven by artificial intelligence (AI) to maximize our customers鈥� sales and profits.

麻豆原创 Intelligent Returns Management benefits consumers, retailers, and other stakeholders — and it helps customers operate more sustainably. Consumers benefit because we help our customers make the returns process easy, and that delivers the intended consumer experience. Our retail customers know that brand loyalty is fragile and can be lost quickly if a returns process is anything but straightforward and smooth. They need to optimize their return process to be efficient and ensure a great customer experience. When goods arrive at their return centers, retailers want to be able to make fast decisions about what to do with them: Should they dispose of the goods? Should they do a quality check and re-certify them for sale, or send them to an agent such as outlet or reseller?

Our solution intelligently recommends return options for consumers optimizing for both the customer experience and the retailer and recommends disposition decisions for warehouse teams to limit value leakage. But it also provides business leaders with newfound visibility into the end-to-end returns process, enabling them to make data-based decisions.

Particularly, retailers can use the embedded analytics to understand what is selling and what is not. Does a particular item always come back聽because it does not meet expectations in terms of size or look?聽Is a particular color not selling or is a style out of fashion? Whatever the reason, they can聽inform the design聽team and stem a problem at the source by not offering聽products that do not meet expectations, and聽thereby be more聽sustainable.

麻豆原创 has offered a returns solution in the past, but it was a back-end, logistics solution. Now, with 麻豆原创 Intelligent Returns Management sitting at the intersection of cloud ERP and 麻豆原创鈥檚 industry cloud, we have closed the gap between front office and back office. That鈥檚 the biggest advantage our solutions bring to fashion retailers and the like.

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE for 麻豆原创 Product Engineering.
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From its earliest days as a pilot project on Kickstarter,听聽positioned itself as a challenger brand by identifying sustainability as the core differentiator. This would help it appeal to an emerging class of consumers who were increasingly environmentally, economically, and socially conscious.

But putting this differentiation into practice is easier said than done. It required a revolutionary approach in the entire shoe-making value chain. This could help ensure a superior product that delivered on sought-after attributes such as quality, comfort, fit, reliability, and price, yet made fully with eco-friendly practices.

Allbirds co-founders and co-CEOs Tim Brown and Joey Zwillinger both like to say, 鈥淢other nature made us do it.鈥� Brown was an all-star athlete and footballer from New Zealand that was familiar with the unique qualities of merino wool. Zwillinger was an engineer and an expert in renewables 鈥� both unlikely entrepreneurs but with a clear vision.

Less than a year after officially launching, Allbirds became a certified B Corporation, dedicated from its inception to making the most sustainable footwear possible while actively working to minimize its environmental impact. The California-based company crafts running shoes, and now even apparel and accessories, using planet-friendly natural materials such as merino wool and eucalyptus tree fibers 颅鈥� forsaking the synthetic materials commonly used in competing products.

Innovating a quality running shoe that is comfortable to wear and treads lightly on the planet has made Allbirds something of a runaway success. In its first two years, the company sold more than one million pairs of its green sneakers and expanded its e-commerce operations into brick-and-mortar stores.

Today, several factories feed into Allbirds鈥� nine distribution centers around the world, which supply its 25 physical retail stores, with the potential to reach 2.5 billion customers through digital commerce. To ensure that consumers can gain full visibility into the environmental impact across the supply chain, the company labels every product it makes with its individual carbon footprint, holding themselves accountable to their mantra to 鈥渃reate better things in a better way.鈥�

This kind of rapid success requires a strategic and thoughtful approach to managing the complexity of building a socially responsible global supply value chain. Allbirds confronts the challenge head on by developing meaningful, multi-year relationships with its suppliers to ensure ethical and humane manufacturing practices and demanding full transparency into its partners鈥� supply chains. This safeguards social responsibility across sourcing and procurement.

With a long-term outlook from the beginning, Allbirds鈥� founders made the decision early on to invest in a single software platform. Allbirds wanted to invest in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that could help the company manage the entirety of its business in the present and continue to do so as it evolved and grew, all while keeping its commitment to sustainability at the forefront.

鈥淲e were really deliberate in making technology investments that would scale with our business,鈥� said Zwillinger. 鈥淲e needed to recognize how customers want to be served and offer an immersive cross-channel experience on mobile, Web, and in the store. To do this, we needed robust and connected real-time digital technologies, giving us visibility into our inventory. We also needed to personalize that experience for our customers, whether it’s online, pick-up in store, or ship-from-store, as well as be able to merchandize our products in a personalized way on our digital platforms.鈥�

Meeting these wide-ranging needs and more, Allbirds adopted as the foundational business infrastructure to help underpin its fast-growing business, track its inventory in real time, and trim waste.

In addition to supporting sales growth, managing marketing, and engaging customers through social media, Allbirds relies on 麻豆原创 solutions to help it achieve specific business goals. This includes creating one financial system of record for all transactions throughout its global operations and embracing new cloud technologies to help it become a more diverse, capable, and responsible global employer.

And with connected technologies across its operations, Allbirds can calculate and monitor its carbon footprint from design and delivery to supporting ongoing innovation to deliver new products and services that delight customers everywhere.

By avoiding shortcuts and sticking to its values, Allbirds’ success story shows that what鈥檚 good for the planet is also good for business.

Vivek Bapat is part of Purpose and Sustainability Marketing at 麻豆原创.
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But the race to 鈥渘et zero鈥� for the automobile industry is still in the first lap, and the route promises to be long and arduous. Greenhouse gas emissions from the industry account for more than 9% of global emissions 鈥� equaling those of the entire European Union. To achieve their individual sustainability targets, companies are dependent on each other for reliable and verifiable data.

Decarbonization Is All About the Data

Becoming carbon neutral requires managing the carbon footprint of individual products in the supply chain, and to achieve this companies need transparency into the carbon footprints of their upstream suppliers 鈥� referred to as . The problem is that only 21% of business executives are satisfied with the quality of their environmental data, according to a global research study from 麻豆原创.

But more accurate carbon footprint data is on the way. 鈥淯ntil now, companies have been using averages to calculate carbon footprint at a product level because there鈥檚 been a lack of accurate, granular emissions data and no consistent methodology,鈥� said John Revess, director Net Zero Transformation at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). 鈥淭o remain a part of global supply chains, it will be necessary for companies to accurately calculate the carbon footprint of their products based on measured values,鈥� predicted Revess. As a member of WBCSD, 麻豆原创 and other companies are defining a for the exchange of carbon emissions data.

鈥淭o meet our decarbonization goals, we depend on credible data from our suppliers on the carbon footprints of the components we build our vehicles with,鈥� said Ralf Pfitzner, global head of Sustainability at Volkswagen, at the .

The two-day online meeting focused on how companies are applying new technologies to reduce their environmental footprint and manage limited resources. 鈥淲e decided to join 麻豆原创 in the co-innovation of a digital carbon tracking tool and database, and this is really exciting because there is obviously a demand,鈥� said Pfitzner.

Volkswagen and 麻豆原创 are working together toward decarbonization in other ways. In 2020, their CEOs Herbert Diess and Christian Klein joined the . The Alliance鈥檚 10 European business leaders have committed 100 billion to decarbonizing their companies and products and are calling for far-reaching climate protection measures.

Massive Investments Necessary in Electrification and Digitalization

VW is to help put its decarbonization challenges in the rear-view mirror. The underlying reasons for companies鈥� investments in environmental issues varies, spanning industry regulations (29%) to society鈥檚 approval of their organization (27%) and strengthening company reputation (26%). Uncertainty as to how to embed sustainability into business processes and IT systems is seen as the greatest barrier to implementing plans for action, one study concludes.

Despite the challenges, VW鈥檚 Pfitzner is optimistic about achieving the company鈥檚 decarbonization targets. VW鈥檚 head of sustainability expects digitalization to play a major role in this transformation. 鈥淏eyond green electricity, there are plenty of opportunities where digitalization will help us reduce our carbon footprint, for example by hooking the manufacturing data into the cloud and having more efficient programming of robots,鈥� he said.

Pfitzner reiterated along the entire lifecycle of its cars, emphasizing the need for intermediate milestones. 鈥淭he coming decades will be essential for the transformation of transport and the car industry. By 2030, we intend to reduce the lifecycle carbon footprint of our passenger car portfolio by 30% compared to 2018,鈥� said Pfitzner.

No Carbon Neutrality in Isolation

Although nearly two-thirds of the global economy is covered by net zero targets, achieving them will require systems thinking and collaborative action among businesses of a type and scale that has never been done before, , partner, Deloitte UK. 鈥淭he proof will be in the implementation,鈥� she predicted.

鈥淣o business or country can become net zero in isolation,鈥� said Routh. 鈥淲hether you are looking at energy supply, transportation, infrastructure, government, or communities, they all need to act in a coordinated way.鈥�

One of the biggest challenges for companies, says Routh, is embedding climate transformation into their business strategies and decision-making processes. This requires data transparency, she emphasizes, noting that there is no shortage of data, but the quality and usability of the data must be ensured.

Nicolas Peter, BMW鈥檚 chief financial officer, agrees. 鈥淒igitalization helps in a significant way to increase data quality, and, from an auditor鈥檚 perspective, data quality is key in order to perform his responsibility in the audit process,鈥� he said at 麻豆原创鈥檚 Sustainability Summit. Peter left no doubts that BMW is counting on new technologies to help it : 鈥淭he trend to sustainability has to be accompanied by digitalization. There is no alternative,鈥� said Peter.

Digitalization Supports Decarbonization

鈥淐EOs need transparency into their supply chains,鈥� said Thomas Saueressig, head of Product Engineering and member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE. 鈥淭hrough its strategic initiative , 麻豆原创 is launching new solutions that help customers reduce their emissions and manage their carbon footprint.鈥�

A new integrated set of solutions announced at the 麻豆原创 Sustainability Summit includes 麻豆原创 Product Footprint Management, which treats greenhouse gases like a 鈥榗urrency鈥� in the value chain. 鈥淥ur sustainability management solutions enable companies not only to optimize their production facilities according to top line and bottom line, but also according to greenhouse gas emissions,鈥� said Saueressig. As part of several joint sustainability initiatives with Accenture, 麻豆原创 and Accenture are working聽to develop new 麻豆原创 solutions that address sustainability and enhance existing core technologies.

The Need for Speed

Setting data quality issues aside, the most important factor for transforming businesses to net-zero is speed, said Deloitte’s Routh. 鈥淚 think the world can master this, but my concern is whether it can do it quickly enough. The businesses that are going to succeed are the ones that understand and embrace the urgency.鈥�

What鈥檚 worse is that this model also contributes to more than two-thirds of global greenhouse emissions, creating a vicious cycle of economic, social, and environmental inequality.

If we are to create a sustainable future, we must effect massive change.

Imagine a future that looks greener, cleaner, and more equal than the world we live in today. A world of zero emissions, zero waste, and zero inequality.

At 麻豆原创, we dare to not just dream about this aspiration, but to power the technology and innovation that is required to activate this bold vision into reality. Technology that can enable businesses to fundamentally rethink how they manage their carbon footprints, design new business processes that create opportunity rather than generate waste, and provide the transparency and regulatory compliance to hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards of economic, social, and environmental governance.

Inspired by the notion that sustainable businesses can effectively lead the way to this ambition, we are launching a new series, Chasing Zero.

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Chasing Zero will feature executive thought leadership and provide unique points of view and insights into sustainability-related transformation from some of the most forward-thinking companies in the world. It will highlight best practices from the global 麻豆原创 ecosystem of leading thinkers and academics, as well as customers and partners.

To learn more, visit . There you can fill out a submission form to share how your company is also chasing Zero.

• Watch the .
• Engage in the conversation by following #ChasingZero and #麻豆原创4Good.

Together, let鈥檚 start 鈥渃hasing zero鈥� to enable a better tomorrow.

Vivek Bapat is senior vice president of Purpose and Sustainability Marketing at 麻豆原创.

The European Union, Japan and the Republic of Korea, together with more than 110 other countries, have pledged carbon neutrality by 2050; China stated it will become carbon neutral before 2060. The U.S. has rejoined the Paris Agreement. On a corporate level, more than 480 companies, including 麻豆原创, have meanwhile signed the聽, setting a net-zero target in line with a 1.5掳C future.

Yet, the urgency and importance to act are as high as ever. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) made it very clear: despite a dip in greenhouse gas emissions from the COVID-19 economic slowdown, the world is still heading for a catastrophic temperature rise above 3掳C this century. Hope continues to lie in a green pandemic recovery, which UNEP believes could cut 25% off the greenhouse emissions expected in 2030.

As more than 1 billion people in over 192 countries participate in today, . It is a major milestone on the road to the UN Climate Change Conference 2021 () in November, where world leaders will report back on progress since the 2015 Paris Agreement and are expected to come together to drive ambitious climate outcomes forward.

It has been rightfully emphasized how important it is for our collective well-being to address the climate crisis. During the past year, however, evidence has been increasing how interrelated taking care of the environment is with taking care of ourselves.

Earlier this month, the UNEP announced 鈥�,鈥� a cross-cutting approach that carries out programs, policies, legislation, and research uniting human, animal, and environmental health.

Julian Blanc, a UNEP wildlife expert sees a clear interdependency:聽鈥淢any zoonoses that have become pandemics have been linked to environmental factors like deforestation and are exacerbated by climate change. We will not succeed in securing human health while we continue to ignore environmental health.鈥�

The close link between climate change and health is also in spotlight at the聽 convening at the margin of COP26. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), which is co-organizing the event, air pollution alone costs an estimated US$ 5.11 trillion in welfare losses globally each year and causes one out of eight deaths globally.聽A new study by the Harvard University published in beginning of February 2021, increases estimates of the numbers killed by air pollution even to one out of five.

Shouldn鈥檛 this reframe everything? It makes climate change seem a lot less abstract and distant; rather an immediate and direct threat to our health and that of our children 鈥� a massive wake-up call!

So as we mark Earth Day 2021 with the theme 鈥淩estore our Earth,鈥� let鈥檚 recognize that for us to be healthy people, we need a healthy planet. This means taking steps to act now and reshape our economy to be more restorative, low-carbon, circular, and inclusive.

At 麻豆原创, our opportunity to create the biggest positive environmental, social, and economic impact within the planetary boundaries is to . With nearly 50 years of experience in resource optimization, we focus on those areas in which we can most effectively contribute: solutions for holistic steering and reporting, , climate action, and socially responsible value chains.

Acknowledging that , we partner and co-innovate with customers, governments, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the world to advocate for practical problem solving.

At the upcoming , we will announce new partnerships and explore opportunities, proven practices, and future solutions with our customers and broader ecosystem, as well as聽see how traditional聽business decision聽making is being transformed with sustainability indicators integrated. In the spirit of Earth Days鈥� theme 鈥淩estore our Earth,鈥� we will restore 100sqm of diverse forest for every summit attendee.

At the same time, we remain committed to lead by example in our own sustainable business operations and practices. In March, when we released our , we announced our objective to become carbon-neutral in our own operations by 2023 鈥� two years earlier than previously envisaged. By accelerating toward carbon-neutral operations, 麻豆原创 is taking the lead in considering the impact of COVID-19 on carbon emissions. The pandemic has taught businesses how to work with customers and colleagues effectively in a virtual setting. We anticipate the development toward more remote work and less business travel to continue and are adjusting our carbon neutrality target to uphold our ambition level.

The pandemic has changed the world of work in ways we could not have imagined. While some see a silver lining in the climate impacts, we cannot deny the toll it continues to take on people, our employees. Looking at these impacts as part of our holistic steering and reporting, it was clear that the required even stronger focus in 2021 with a broad portfolio of benefits and offerings help our people maintain balance and thrive mental, emotional, physical, and social health. For example, we are implementing a Mental Health Day, a company-sponsored global holiday for all employees, scheduled for April 27 next week. Work will grind to a halt on that day, giving everyone time off to do something for themselves and their families, thereby offering employees a chance to recharge.

Let鈥檚 take Earth Day 2021 as both a reminder and inspiration of what鈥檚 at stake and how important it is that we join forces to create a more just, healthy, and prosperous life for all people, respecting the boundaries of our one planet.

At 麻豆原创, we are as committed as ever to live up to . I invite everyone to join us on this journey.

Daniel Schmid is chief sustainability officer of 麻豆原创 SE.
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These staggering numbers stem from the predicted spike in consumption created by the combination of a growing population and higher per capita income. If this consumption spike comes true, there will be massive consequences on our planet.

Increasingly have expressed disapproval over the consumption and production model, which is powered by the economic business practices of the industrial age: 鈥渢ake, make, waste.鈥� Managing the waste aspect of this industrial age approach requires even more resources and energy that in turn contributes to increased emissions and hazardous environmental issues. It鈥檚 literally waste creating more waste!

There is a clear case to shift from linear models to a more sustainable, of 鈥渞esource, recovery, reuse.鈥� According to the Ellen McArthur Foundation, of which 麻豆原创 is a contributing member, the implementation of circular business practices could reduce up to and 90% of .

Businesses are listening. Concerned by the potentially negative impacts on their operating costs, brand reputation, and employee retention, many companies are sharing bold aspirations and investments to reduce waste and emissions across their supply chains. These investments are also a generational opportunity to create innovative business models that can drive new sources of growth. Whether the industry is consumer products or agribusiness, technology offers the most effective way to achieve circularity at scale. There are three main ways that technology can enable circularity.

First, a business must start by eliminating surplus from its own operations to keep products and materials in use and regenerate natural systems. An inspiring example of this is &ever, a Hamburg-based farming company offering vertical farming solutions in cities with limited space. It uses to optimize production and manage the needs and capacities of its farms to help ensure minimal waste in its own business processes.

Second, a company can reduce waste by gaining detailed visibility into material flows across its supply chain and that of its immediate trading partners. offers an effective solution to aid in this process. The solution is supported by blockchain technology and provides a new level of transparency into raw material supply chains. This unique offering goes beyond tracking the final packaged good and provides visibility into the sourcing of all raw materials, including plastics, agriculture, and metals. Innovative solutions like GreenToken make sustainable sourcing and purchasing feasible and accelerates the transition to a circular economy.

Third, a business can activate circular practices by addressing specific problems and opportunities throughout its industry business network. For example, with the aim of reducing the use of single-use plastics across an entire industry cluster, 麻豆原创 launched the Plastics Cloud, a new global marketplace for suppliers of recycled plastics and plastic alternatives. Through 麻豆原创鈥檚 involvement in the World Economic Forum鈥檚 , we are piloting this innovative technology solution through close collaboration with the Ghanaian Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation. In a country where only five percent of plastics are recycled, the Plastics Cloud reimagines the production, use, and reuse of plastics, helping the environment and improving the lives of Ghanaian waste pickers.

I am excited about the potential 麻豆原创 has to help businesses run more productively, revolutionize their business models, and deliver growth to realize the vision of a circular economy across industries.

As business leaders, we must embrace sustainability as a business priority. This requires embedding sustainability across our business processes, using it as selection criteria for our vendors, and inspiring an . Together, we can be on the forefront of a future with zero waste, one with a circular economy that thrives not at the expense of people and planet, but in unison.

Julia White is and a member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE.

At the same time, the聽聽is compounding our planet鈥檚 resource crisis, with 2020 being one of the聽聽on record. But 2020 was also the year we saw a聽聽in humanity鈥檚 resource consumption. The year brought us the COVID-19 pandemic, and that changed consumer behavior almost overnight. In so doing, it also offered a unique opportunity to rethink the role businesses play in the environment, society, and economics.

Now is the time to turn strategies for climate action and circular economy principles into action. Companies must anticipate the carbon footprint of any business decision they make, as well as its impact on society. Merely measuring the carbon footprint as a function of production doesn鈥檛 go nearly far enough, given that emissions created by supply chains can be more than five-times greater than those created by enterprises directly. Measuring, monitoring, and reducing carbon emissions聽across the entire value chain means inventing entirely new value chains. And these will no longer be linear.

At 麻豆原创, we have started down this聽, pioneering approaches that support responsible design, sourcing, production, consumption, recovery, and reuse. These are the “responsible” actions that challenge linear value chains. And consumers want them; they want to know that the metals in the batteries they throw out are being recovered and reused, that the shampoo packaging they buy has been designed and produced using pollution-reducing methods and sourced from residual plastic waste, and that the clothes they wear have not been manufactured using child labor.

That goes well beyond just checking labels for ingredients.聽, 73% of consumers said traceability of products is important to them. Of those, 71% would even pay a premium for it. Consumers want details about sourcing, how products are made or processed, how they are delivered, as well as assurances that brands take actions demonstrating social responsibility.

But can today鈥檚 supply chains deliver? In many cases, supply chains are not only linear, they are also fragmented. Businesses that insist on maintaining enterprise-centric systems are restricting their own network visibility and collaboration. Companies that still rely on one-to-one connections and paper-based processes to connect with customers, suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors are losing any advantages their products might offer.

Now, more than ever, to achieve circularity, we must connect these linear, fragmented supply chains into聽.

Jump-starting these efforts requires that 麻豆原创 engage in alliances and partnerships that accelerate marketplaces for waste materials, enable more responsible production methods and ensure better consumer experiences. To name one of a number of such alliances,听麻豆原创 is a member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation,听helping companies enhance their resource productivity and realize a circular economy.

We aspire to lead by example. 罢丑别听recent announcement of our intention to become carbon-neutral in our own operations by the end of 2023 — two years earlier than previously planned — is a strong statement of our commitment to sustainable business operations. The impact of technology and digital solutions extends beyond the boundaries of companies and industries. They can be multipliers for change. For example, by 2030, new digital technologies could reduce global carbon emissions by 20%.

麻豆原创 is uniquely positioned to help build a low-carbon future and create the foundation for a聽. But such a fundamental shift cannot be accomplished by one single entity.聽It is the responsibility of businesses, governments, and regulators to scale up efforts. With nearly 50 years of聽听补苍诲听聽expertise, we at 麻豆原创 are ready to support, enabling a rich ecosystem of聽sustainability startups and聽.

I couldn鈥檛 be more committed to 麻豆原创鈥檚 contribution, and I look forward to inspiring our customers to scale with us!

To learn more about sustainability innovations across disciplines and sectors from 麻豆原创 and our ecosystem, please register for the virtual .

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE, 麻豆原创 Product Engineering.
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The global pursuit of net-zero carbon emissions is a huge undertaking. A significant transition to renewable energy alone can only address聽. The other 45% result from transportation, land use, building management, and the production of consumer and industrial goods. This shows that taking climate action requires many different, interlinking solutions and needs to be a joint endeavor among nations, civil societies, and business alike.

The shift toward sustainable business practices is being driven by governments, consumers, investors, and even employees.聽While most companies monitor and measure the CO2聽emissions of their production sites, customers are increasingly demanding visibility into the full carbon footprint of the individual products they purchase.

As one result, companies need to move from the linear economic model that still dominates the industry today to the principle of circularity 鈥� a聽systemic shift that builds long-term resilience, generates business and economic opportunities, and provides environmental and societal benefits.

In this new equation, carbon is increasingly becoming a new vehicle of transformation. It is effectively a global, universal 鈥渃urrency鈥� that can be tracked, traded, managed, and minimized like any other resource. Still, for most businesses, managing carbon is either seen as a necessary cost of doing business, or a tax that serves as a penalty. One way or the other, it is considered to be corrosive to profits.

But what if we could convert carbon management into an investment strategy that can also drive profit? What if we could make sustainability profitable and profitability sustainable, without sacrificing one for the other?

This is just as visionary as it is promising. Let鈥檚 take the example of a large fast-moving consumer goods company. On a five- to 10-year horizon, depending on legislative developments, for avoided offsetting spend of one to two percent of revenue per year, top-line growth of one to three percent of revenue per year, and cost savings of 鈧�2 to 5 million per year based on more accurate and efficient emissions accounting and reporting.

This needs software that helps companies measure, account, and take the right action 鈥� and 麻豆原创 is uniquely positioned to help enterprises tackle this challenge. As we run the supply chains of the largest companies in the world, we can play a central role in helping companies manage their green line by minimizing the carbon footprint and negative environmental impact of their products.

Watch this space for more information on the 聽and further details on how we help companies to responsibly manage their green line.

Christian Klein is CEO of 麻豆原创.
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