SAP Makes a New Push to Green IT

SAP announced today at CeBit that it has launched a new comprehensive approach to environmental sustainability with three major components:

• SAP announced it will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions down to its year-2000 levels by the year 2020
• SAP has partnered with TechniData AG, to expand its solutions for environment, health and safety (EHS) management
• SAP announced that its sustainability efforts will be led by a newly formed cross-functional sustainability organization headed by Peter Graf, who will act as SAP's first Chief Sustainability Officer

It is important to note that sustainability and healthy safety is nothing new for SAP, since it has particularly strong solutions for equipment management, end of life management, materials management and tracking, etc... however, what this announcement shows is that there will now be specific solutions to support sustainability regulations, requirements and corporate goals, as opposed to solutions that already existed and just so happened to be "green."

Sustainability is also an ever-changing and rather immature topic in some regards, as areas like carbon trading and credits have a lot of back and forth in political circles. But at the same time, I believe that many corporations realize that sustainability is not a fad, gimmick or marketing ploy, but rather something they must take very seriously, especially in the context of our increasingly linked and global economy. By having executive level support and backing, SAP should be able to keep up with customer requirements and go well beyond short-term, "green washing" and marketing-centric campaigns.