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It has been a busy last quarter for all of us in SAP Sustainability! Besides delivering innovative new features and functions in SAP Sustainability Footprint Management, we also had a strong presence at SAP Sapphire and have exciting success stories to share. This blog post continues my quarterly series and gives you an overview of some of the highlights. I’m covering:
- Corporate Carbon Footprint Calculation
- Corporate Balance Analytics
- Emission Factor Mapping with AI
- Spend-based Calculation for Scope 3.1
- Other Release Highlights
- SAP Sapphire 2024 Recap
- Customer & Analyst Update
Corporate Carbon Footprint Calculation
In my last blog post (SAP Sustainability Footprint Management: Q1-24 Updates & Highlights), I already introduced our new form-based data collection approach, calculating Waste Generated in Operations. We have now enhanced this by Business Activities for any Greenhouse Gas (GHG) category, enabling you the calculation of a full Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF) as per the GHG Protocol. You can set up those Business Activities at plant level by specifying the calculation method and emission factor for the footprint calculation. Business Users in your organization can then manually input activity data for these activities in the relevant apps. This data, combined with information from other sources, can be included in your overall footprint calculations and displayed in the analytical apps. This new approach provides you with maximum flexibility by enabling you to add data that isn’t available in your ERP system and to choose between activity- and spend-based calculations. It also speeds up the initial setup process and provides you with the possibility to start with the form-based data collection. You can then move to an ERP-centric collection over time for specific GHG scopes and categories, or also for specific plants in your company.
To set up the data collection, first ensure that the user roles are assigned correctly, and then configure the Footprint Inventory Scope. In the Manage Footprint Inventory Scopes app, edit an existing footprint inventory scope or create a new one, assign companies and plants, activate the appropriate GHG Data Form, and provide a guidance text for data entry. After you’ve done this, the form-based data collection will be enabled.
In the next step, you can create Business Activities for which you want to collect data. A Business Activity can be any activity in your company that you want to calculate emissions for, such as different types of travel (air, train, car) for various locations. Business users can then input relevant data (e.g., fuel used or distance traveled), and the system calculates emissions based on provided emission factors. Those can be updated over time by creating new emission factor periods within each activity. In the Manage Business Activities app, you can create a new activity by entering information such as the GHG Category and validity period. Here you also indicate the Preferred Footprint Type, defining which kind of data the business user later should input:
- Manual Emission: Direct input of total CO2e values without needing to calculate or provide additional calculation data
- Quantity-Based: Quantity data (e.g., material produced or distance traveled) to calculate CO2e
- Spend-Based: Amount of money spent on an activity to determine CO2e
Finally, you need to specify the calculation method (e.g. distance- or fuel-based) and respective emission factor(s) by either entering it manually or selecting a reference from an LCA dataset. The system then calculates the total CO2e accordingly.
After successful setup of the Business Activities, you can create GHG data collections. In the Manage GHG Data Collections app, those can be set up for each footprint inventory scope, period, plant, and business activity. The Data Collections can also be regenerated if there are changes in the Business Activities.
Now, the system is ready for the business users in your company to enter data in forms in the collection apps. In the Record GHG Data app, by default all relevant plants and periods are displayed. It's possible to exclude any unnecessary plants by marking them as Not Applicable. After selecting the desired plant, users can enter data – quantity, amount spend, or total CO2e – following the Preferred Footprint Type to ensure accuracy. Alternatively, data can be imported using the provided template. If the entered value differs by more than 30% from the previous period, the system flags this with a warning message.
In the final step, check data readiness and calculate footprints. In the Calculate Footprints app, you can as usual trigger the footprint calculation. If you’re using only the form-based data collection in the selected inventory scope, there’s no need to enter additional data. The progress and completion status is visible in the Data Readiness tab.
For more information on the different steps, check the scenario guide Form-Based Data Collection for Business Activities on SAP Help.
For a detailed guidance on setting up the solution for calculating corporate carbon footprints, check our brand-new Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF) Implementation Guide. This package includes sample data for a model company and an implementation book to do an end-to-end setup of SAP Sustainability Footprint Management for calculating the CCF of the example company. Note that the target audience is consultants and partners, and access is restricted, requiring a login via your SAP account.
Corporate Balance Analytics
For analyzing the calculated corporate carbon footprint and the corporate balance, we released a new Sankey chart to visualize the emissions across a reporting period. This chart helps you to understand the major contributors for the emissions. Identifying these hotspots enables you to define specific actions for reducing the emissions in those areas and by that supporting your company’s decarbonization journey. The chart can be accessed directly via the Corporate Balance app or by clicking on the respective card in the Footprint Overview app.
You might have seen such a multilevel Sankey chart when visualizing a company’s financial balance and the respective financial flows. In SAP Sustainability Footprint Management, the company’s total CO2e emissions are displayed at the center, on the left side you see the input emissions from the different GHG scopes and categories, and you can follow their flow through the company. On the right, the proportions of the carbon emissions distributed among your various product and non-product outputs are visualized. The widths of the respective flows are proportional to their quantity. You can select a specific item subtype in the Sankey chart to display the breakdown of the item subtype into all the individual items in the table below the chart. The table is sorted based on the value of the emissions in descending order to help you gain insights. For example, clicking on 3.1 – Purchased Goods and Services will show you the emissions for all your purchased (raw) materials.
Via the filters in the header, you can select the Footprint Inventory Scope you want to analyze, and you can also filter on specific companies or plants. Furthermore, it’s possible to select one or more Footprint Inventories, enabling you to display the emissions across a reporting period. This way you can, for example, analyze your corporate footprint for the full (financial) year. Check SAP Help for more information: Using the Corporate Balance Application.
Emission Factor Mapping with AI
At SAP Sapphire 2024, we officially announced our first released feature in SAP Sustainability Footprint Management that is powered by SAP Business AI! It’s now possible to leverage Artificial Intelligence for mapping emission factors to your purchased products, reducing your manual effort of mapping ERP and Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) data and by that saving you significant time. The following demo video gives you an impression of the powerful capabilities and how your processes are improved and simplified (click on the picture to start the video):
For the mapping, we use the OpenAI text-embedding-ada-002 model. Embeddings are vector representations of textual data providing context and semantic meaning of the text. First, we generate embeddings for emission factors from LCA databases and store them. When mapping a product, an embedding is generated from the product’s data coming from the ERP system, currently comprising product and product group name and description. We plan to extend that to more dimensions, such as geography and commodity code in future releases. The generated embeddings from the LCA and ERP data are stored in the HANA Cloud Vector Engine. In the next step, the system compares them for similarity using cosine distance and calculates the Similarity Score. The closest 10 are provided as suggested results. The calculated score helps in identifying the quality of the mapping. In the future, we also plan to enhance this score by additional variables to make it more representative of the data and more user-friendly.
The feature is included in the Manage Purchased Products Footprint app, which went through a redesign for this purpose. You now find separate tabs for Products without Footprints, containing both entries from master and transactional data, and Product Groups without Footprints. From the respective list, you can select those products (groups) you would like to map, clicking on Generate Mappings triggers the process. Go to the Unreleased Footprints tab to view the mapping results. Here you also find the Similarity Score, clicking on a line item opens the details and the alternative footprint suggestions. After reviewing and releasing your preferred mappings, the footprints are moved to the Released Footprints tab. For auditing purposes, the detail pages of the footprints are also including the information if AI was used for the mapping. If yes, the Similarity Score is stored, too. The AI mapping works for all LCA datasets maintained int the Manage Emission Factors app. When you upload a new data package, the embeddings will be generated automatically. More information can be found on SAP Help: Using AI to Map Purchased Products and Purchased Product Groups.
Of course, it’s also possible to map your products and product groups manually, and with the revamped design of the app it’s now even easier than before. In the respective tab, click on Assign Manually and either download/ import the template, or select the entries you want to map and click on Map Manually. See SAP Help for more information: Manually Map Purchased Products and Product Groups without Footprints. Alternatively, you can also still create a product (group) footprint directly in the Released Footprints tab by clicking on the Create button or by importing the provided template. For all details, see Manage Purchased Product Footprints in SAP Help.
With the mapping on Product Group level, we provide a backup for products for which you don’t have granular emission factors available or also for products that have similar or even the same emission factors. Thus, you save more time and effort in mapping ERP to LCA data. In the Products without Footprints tab, you can see in the column Product Group Emission Factor Reference if there’s already an emission factor assigned that would be applied as a backup and if so, which one. In the Manage Calculation Variants app, this is now included as a new footprint determination method that can be applied to organizational footprint inventory calculations.
Note that with the release of the new emission factors mapping features we have also deprecated the Manage Mappings app and will remove it from the SAP Fiori launchpad in October 2024. In the Manage Purchased Product Footprints app, you can import the mappings to your footprints.
Spend-based Calculation for Scope 3.1
Besides activity-based emission factors, it’s now also possible to map spend-based emission factors to purchased products to calculate your GHG Scope 3.1 (Purchased Goods and Services) emissions as per the spend-based calculation method. The specified spend-based purchased product footprints are used in all determination methods to calculate the CO2e footprint value of Goods Receipt from Supplier, provided the amount and currency are imported. The mapping can be done for both products and product groups. And you can do this mapping either manually or leverage the new AI capabilities. For more details see SAP Help: Manage Purchased Product Footprints.
The required spend-based emission factors can be imported and managed the usual way via the Manage Emission Factors app. The respective Excel-template has been enhanced accordingly, so currency information can be added. Besides uploading own factors, you can also use the Supply Chain Greenhouse Gas Emission Factors v1.2 by NAICS-6 dataset, provided by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This data package is available as default content in the app. For more information, see Using the Manage Emission Factors Application in SAP Help.
Other Release Highlights
For calculating the emissions of the manufacturing process (GHG Scope 1 & 2) in a specific plant and allocate them to the manufactured products, it was always required to set up an Energy Flow Model and input energy bill data. Now, we provide the additional option to use only Planned Energy Consumption Rates for calculating energy consumption and distribution. In the Manage Calculation Variants app, you can set up a calculation variant to use the option Use Only Planned Consumption Rate. The system then projects the monthly energy needs of each product by using the imported Internal Service Confirmation business transactions to match energy sources to their planned consumption rates, specified in the Manage Planned Energy Consumption Rates. The energy source footprint items are connected to the resources with the planned quantity as the actual quantity, and on the energy sources the sum of planned quantities is evaluated with the emission factor of the energy sources to determine the CO2e footprint. More details can be found in SAP Help Portal: Using the Manage Calculation Variants Application and Using the Manage Planned Energy Consumption Rates Application.
To further improve the User Experience, we provided additional file template enhancements. This includes the templates for master and business transaction data, which now provide field descriptions for better understanding. For an easier way of uploading emission factors, we’re now providing a new Simple Template in the Manage Emission Factors app. This compact version contains essential information such as name and validity period and is intended particularly to upload basic data for testing purposes or simple use cases. For more information, see SAP Help: Using the Manage Emission Factors Application.
We also enhanced the APIs available on SAP Business Accelerator Hub. They’ve been updated to support the technical specifications for PCF data exchange version 2.1.0.
Besides the Europe (Netherlands) region under Microsoft Azure (cf-eu20), SAP Sustainability Footprint Management is now also available in two additional regions:
- US East (VA) under Amazon Web Services (AWS) (cf-us10).
- Singapore under Amazon Web Services (AWS) (cf-ap11).
You can select one of these regions when creating a subaccount. For more information, see Setting Up the Global Account and Subaccount in SAP Help.
For collecting actual emissions for purchased products directly from your suppliers, you can now also leverage the SAP Ariba Sourcing integration. Carbon footprint data is gathered from suppliers using the Carbon Footprint Questionnaire. This dynamic tool allows suppliers to provide a versatile range of responses based on industry-standard values, ensuring accuracy and compliance with environmental regulations. Once suppliers are awarded, their carbon footprint data is seamlessly transferred from Ariba Sourcing through an automated scheduled task, enhancing efficiency and data integrity. Received in Sustainability Footprint Management, the footprints can be reviewed in the Manage Supplier Footprints app. After releasing, they’re available in the footprint calculation. Find all details on this integration and how to set it up on SAP Help: SAP Ariba Sourcing Integration with SAP Sustainability Footprint Management.
The following video nicely demonstrates the user flows and the integration of the two products (click on the picture to start the video):
SAP Sapphire 2024 Recap
At this year’s SAP Sapphire, Sustainability had again a strong presence, including many on-stage sessions featuring SAP executives and experts, as well as customers and partners. And also our demo booth in Orlando and Barcelona was much-frequented! At the event, we announced a set of sustainability tracking, monitoring and reporting capabilities, one piece of it being the above-described new carbon calculator engine for corporate footprints in SAP Sustainability Footprint Management. Those new capabilities are intended to help organizations steer their sustainability commitments and keep pace with global regulations, built on our ERP-centric, cloud-based, AI-enabled approach. Learn more in the article AI-Enabled Sustainability at the Heart of ERP by Sophia Mendelsohn, Chief Sustainability and Commercial Officer at SAP.
Did you miss the event? No worries! The recordings of some of the sessions and demos are still available on the Virtual Channel, check out the Sustainability Management track here: SAP Sapphire 2024 Session Catalog.
If you want to discover our AI-powered SAP solutions for calculating and reporting corporate and product carbon footprints, watch the below demo recording by Jim Sullivan, Head of Product Management for SAP Sustainability. He’s showcasing the ERP-centric data collection and calculations on the path towards a green ledger (click on the picture to start the video):
Customer & Analyst Update
One highlight of the past quarter was our customer Martur Fompak International, one of the world’s leading suppliers of automotive seat systems, winning the SAP Innovation Award 2024 in two categories: Industry Leader and Sustainability Hero! They implemented SAP Sustainability Footprint Management to incorporate carbon emission values into the equation for every decision they take to steer the industry and the world towards a more sustainable future. They’re further revolutionizing cockpit customization with their AI-driven innovation, applying several SAP solutions. When personalizing cockpit elements such as seats, door panels, and dashboards, OEMs and customers can now see the carbon impact of each choice in real time. By providing and promoting more sustainable and environmentally friendly options, Martur Fompak has decreased carbon emissions by 34% for each seat the company produces. Read the full story here: SAP Innovation Award 2024: Martur Fompak International.
Another customer who is adopting SAP Sustainability Footprint Management is CP Foods. The leading food producer, serving over 4 billion people globally, is adopting multiple SAP solutions to enhance its digital transformation and sustainability initiatives. They aim to achieve substantial reductions in carbon emissions by 2030 and 2050 and have set ambitious Net Zero goals validated by the Science-Based Targets Initiative. The company will use SAP's technology to monitor, report, and manage sustainability data in real time, aiding compliance with future carbon regulations and enhancing operational efficiency. For more information, check the press release: CP Foods Selects SAP Solutions for Cloud Sustainability.
A great endorsement of our products and strategy comes from the analysts: SAP has been named a leader among 18 vendors in the first-ever IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Carbon Accounting and Management Applications 2024 Vendor Assessment. As carbon management evolves, they confirmed that SAP stands out with our solutions like SAP Sustainability Footprint Management and SAP Green Ledger. Our tools integrate sustainability into business processes, helping organizations meet regulatory requirements, enhance operational efficiency, and make more informed decisions. The IDC report emphasizes the importance of data integration and advanced tools for effective carbon management, positioning SAP’s comprehensive suite as a critical asset for businesses facing escalating environmental scrutiny. Read the press release here: SAP in IDC MarketScape Carbon Accounting & Management.
Additional Information
For in-depth details on SAP Sustainability Footprint Management, including concepts, setup, and the application help, I recommend you browsing through the SAP Help Portal. For an overview of all new features and functions that have been released, check the What’s New section, which is updated with every new software release.
To get an outlook on the features and functions that are planned to be added to the solution in the next months, have a look into SAP Road Map Explorer. This is updated regularly and will provide you with an overview of all planned innovations and which benefits those will bring to you.
For exploring and experimenting in a live system, register for the free SAP Sustainability Footprint Management Trial. You’ll receive an e-mail with access information within seconds after your registration and can then test the solution at your own convenience within a 30-days trial period. It also includes a wide range of guided tours designed to help you navigate through all the features and functions comprehensively. Recently, we also added new tours and working on additional ones at the moment, representing the latest features.
If you want to learn more about the product, check out our SAP Learning Journey: Taking Action on Climate Change with SAP Sustainability Footprint Management. This eLearning includes three comprehensive courses, each consisting of multiple units. The training is interactive, featuring numerous hands-on simulations and exercises. Upon successful completion of the program, you’ll be rewarded with a Record of Achievement and a digital badge. We also plan a major update in the upcoming months to provide separate learning journeys for different roles and levels, stay tuned!
To stay up to date on SAP Sustainability Footprint Management, follow me here in the SAP Community. In regular cadence, I’ll publish blog posts giving you updates on all the product’s new features and functions as well as deep dives into the product capabilities. I’m also looking forward to engaging with you directly, feel free to leave your feedback in the comment section.
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