Sustainability with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edit...
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It's good to be back this year with the latest updates. This post will focus on key innovations with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition 2302 with the Sustainability LoB. I will be covering the latest and greatest from SAP Sustainability Control Tower, SAP Product Footprint Management and the latest update from Sustainability in Finance. For the last update, have a look at my previous blog post "SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition Product Update Series H2 2022: Sustainability".
Let's begin with a quick overview of the latest and greatest from Sustainability LoB. Watch my video below and lets get right into it.
Overview of Sustainability LoB Innovations Delivered with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition 2302
Release video: Sustainability - Key Innovations with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition 2302
SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises - Brief Overview
As always, I will start the blog post with an overview of SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises.
SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises is a comprehensive cloud offer that integrates data and process to manage carbon footprint, reduce material waste, and achieve social sustainability. Supported with the power and expertise of a global ecosystem.
SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises
SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises brings together data and business process solutions to address:
SAP Sustainability Control Tower, as part of "Holistic Steering and Reporting", allows user to drive holistic steering by setting targets, monitor progress and gain actionable insights from dependable sustainability data. This in-turn gives trust by establishing robust and auditable Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting. It also facilitates assessing and improving performance regarding sustainability matters:
For strategic performance management and related reporting.
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), and financial / operational data integrated for a holistic view.
Facilitate the journey towards having the right data in the right place.
The Our Ambitions App lets users visualize ambitions and KPIs related to sustainability targets, set long-term ambitions and analyze current and forecasted events.
Why use the Our Ambitions App?
Setting long-term ambitions – Create clarity by defining a long-term ambition and operationalize via granular target setting
Visualizing current performance – Compare current performance against target in order to drive targeted action toward reaching ambitions
Analyze current and forecasted trends – Understand past performance and act based on expected future trend
Drilldown and compare – Drive targeted action via drill-down and comparing different business units and locations
Following is a system demo of Our Ambitions App. Note that configuring data through Sustainability Metrics Catalogue is a prerequisite. More information is available in the demo and in my previous blog post.
Demo: SAP Sustainability Control Tower - Our Ambitions App
Main Features: Add/Edit Ambitions
The user may use this feature to add or edit existing ambitions in the Our Ambitions app.
The following fields are available to create new or edit an existing ambition.
Add Ambition details
Description
Explanation of the input field
Sustainability Metric
The specific sustainability metric
Expected Year of Achieving Ambition
Year, such as "2030"
Ambition Group
You can create ambition groups to collate similar ambitions.
Ambition Description
Textual description of the ambition, for example "Reducing Greenhouse Gases"
Ambition Target
A target number. This can be any unit of measure (for instance, a percentage) depending on the key figure
Main Features: Compare Ambitions
This feature lets users compare existing ambitions to determine if they are on/off track and perform other useful tasks.
Overview Pannel – displays On Track and Off Track information, current performance of the organization, Total Variance and Total Target Completion for the selected units.
Ambition Period – select the time period; Year, month and/or quarter
Hierarchies –chose from three hierarchies; Business Location, Legal Entity, and Reporting Line
Main Features: Ambitions Groups
An ambition can be added to a group. This can make it easier for you to navigate and find specific ambitions through tabs at the top of the page where all groups are listed.
We are glad announce the release of The EU Taxonomy Regulation. Which aims to establishe an EU classification system of economic activities that is intended to provide businesses and investors with clear definitions to identify the degree of environmental sustainability of business activities. It requires corporations to publicly disclose the proportion of their turnover, CapEx, and OpEx that is eligible (economic activities in scope of the EU taxonomy) and aligned (economic activities meeting the relevant criteria). The EU Taxonomy is published in the form of a delegated act that specifies the content, methodology, and presentation of information to be disclosed.
Following is a system demo explaining individual concepts and step-by-step guide.
Demo: SAP Sustainability Control Tower - EU Taxonomy Content
The EU Taxonomy regulation establishes six environmental objectives:
Climate Change Mitigation
Climate Change Adaptation
Sustainable Use and Protection of Water and Marine Resources
Transition to a Circular Economy
Pollution Prevention and Control
The protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems
Different means can be required to assess whether an economic activity contributes to each objective. To assess the degree of alignment with the preceding environmental objectives, the EU taxonomy defines Technical Screening Criteria for each economic activity. A business activity or asset associated to an eligible economic activity is considered aligned if it fulfils three sets of criteria:
Substantial Contribution: The business activity substantially contributes to one of the preceding environmental objectives.
Do No Significant Harm: The business activity does no serious harm to any of the other five environmental objectives.
Minimum Safeguards: The organization meets certain standards when it comes to human and labor rights, bribery, taxation, and fair competition.
* More information can be found on the SAP Help Portal here.
** Please note: The EU Taxonomy app is a preview version with sample content. It cannot be used productively as of now. Full release is expected soon.
SAP Product Footprint Management
SAP Product Footprint Management, part of “Zero Emissions with Climate Change Solutions”, enables you to calculate product footprints periodically and at scale along the entire product lifecycle. You can extract business data (such as master data and material movements information) from your SAP S/4HANA or SAP S/4HANA Cloud systems and associate these to your emission factors. You can then run a mass calculation to generate footprints for your products.
Last year SAP announced partnership with BearingPoint on carbon and environmental footprint solutions (Press Release: SAP and BearingPoint Partner on Zero Emissions). Based on this partnership, we have introduced the ability to calculate freight transport footprints. This marks a huge milestone for our product and for sure also for our customers. We are now extending Value Chain Footprints from GHG Protocol Scope 3.1 (Purchased Goods) to additional categories, enabling the calculation of GHG Protocol Scope 3.4 (upstream transportation) and Scope 3.9 (downstream transportation), as well as Scope 1 (Direct emissions related to company-owned vehicles).
The Freight Transportation capabilities are integrated into SAP Product Footprint Management as additional standalone apps for calculating the transport emissions for all your inbound and outbound transports. The apps are delivered with pre-configured content, including network data like seaports, airport, rail barge terminals, as well vehicle data and emissions factor from the Global Logistics Emission Council (GLEC).
Please refer to the demo below.
Demo: SAP Product Footprint Management – Calculate Freight Transport Footprint
Manage Data app:
Configure master and transactional activity data for your transport footprints. Master data entities for freight can be created and edited in this app without requiring a connection to your ERP system, and transactional data can be uploaded via .csv templates. Furthermore, imported master data from your ERP system will be displayed as view only (cannot be edited).
Manage Data App – Viewing and Editing Vehicle Classes
Calculate Transport Footprints app:
This app gives the possibility to upload transport data from .csv flat files. Furthermore, you can review your uploads and check if they were successful. It is possible to set-up your own networks and locations, and there are embedded engines for routing and distance.
Calculate Transport Footprints App – Automatic Matching of Data Structures
Manage Calculation Errors app:
View errors in your data and restart the calculation when the errors are fixed. This app provides a dashboard giving an overview about the calculations that you have conducted as well as their status. Raw data is provided by the client and is then converted into the correct format in order to be usable within Product Footprint Management.
Manage Calculation Errors App
View Transport Data app:
This app provides you the business intelligence functionalities you were looking for by generating charts and detailed reporting on the calculated data within the tool directly. You have multiple options to select and receive the KPIs that you need for your carbon reporting. Furthermore, you can download the created sheets to easily implement them in your reporting.
View Transport Data App
View Transport Routes app:
This app lets users visualize emissions of transport flows on a map. You can select and view transportation flows and the corresponding emissions. You can chose Map Configurations and decide on the appropriate aggregation levels.
View Transport Routes App
Key Takeaways:
Get insights about the environmental impact of the transportation of your goods, according to GHG Protocol Scope 1 (own fleet), 3.4 (upstream), and 3.9 (downstream)
Perform mass uploads and calculate the freight transport footprints of your company
Built-in analytics enabling reporting on different levels
Geolocation based mapping service enabling visualization of transport flows and routes with related emissions
Sustainability in Finance with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition
With this blog post, I will be touch topics across the LoBs. Sustainability has a deep impact on all forms of business. The next update is about collecting ESG Data from Finance and is based on the blog post "Finance in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition 2302" by ulrich.hauke
Starter Content for Building Forms to Collect ESG Data
Group Reporting Data Collections package of sample data entry forms for ESG (environmental, social, corporate governance) metrics based on requirements of GRI and WEF SCM standards allows for quick and easy data collection from entities. Leverage Group Reporting’s existing abilities to manage and orchestrate global data collection processes for currencies, quantities, and texts for ESG scenario.
Sample forms included: Greenhouse gas emissions, Energy consumption, Water consumption and withdrawal, Personnel – diversity and inclusion, Personnel – discrimination cases, Anti-corruption training, research and development projects description.
Value Proposition
Increase efficiency in building your own ESG data collection forms by making use of the example forms as reference
Easy collection of ESG data from entities together with consolidation figures
Possibility to extend data entry forms for additional ESG metrics
For more information on SAP for Sustainability and our 3 pillars of Zero Emissions with Climate Action, Zero Waste with Circular Economy and Zero Inequality with Social Responsibility check out the following links: