Our key capabilities, categorized in Sustainability Reporting & Management, Carbon Management & Accounting, Circularity and Operational Compliance are delivered and brought to life across our portfolio of SAP Sustainability solutions, comprising 8 main products:
Keeping in mind our value proposition of Start with regulatory compliance, then build business value and drive sustainable transformation, these solutions
- Allow you to start with regulatory compliance and covering legal requirements, e.g. with SAP Sustainability Control Tower for CSRD reporting, or SAP Environment, Health & Safety Management or SAP S/4HANA for product compliance, or with SAP Responsible Design & Production to comply with plastic tax or Extended Producer Responsibility regulations.
- Move beyond compliance to fully embed sustainability criteria into corporate decision-making towards true business sustainability, e.g. through bringing carbon values of product carbon footprint calculated in SAP Sustainability Footprint Management or retrieved via SAP Sustainability Data Exchange into procurement or product design, or connecting carbon emissions data with financial data to valance carbon and cost in integrated decision-making.
Our portfolio of Sustainability solutions is characterized by the following three attributes:
Now let's zoom into a few of our key solutions.
Sustainability Reporting & Management
First, we want to introduce you to the most important features and benefits of SAP Sustainability Control Tower, our key solution for compliance with sustainability reporting requirements, setting and monitoring targets and defining and monitoring initiatives.
SAP Sustainability Control Tower
SAP Sustainability Control Tower is a solution that can help customers evolve their sustainability reporting to an ongoing proactive ESG journey. Customers can leverage predefined integration to pull data from SAP and other systems, easing data collection and allowing them to manage all relevant sustainability data in one place. Establishing robust and auditable ESG reporting, the solution can help customers respond to common standards, such as ESRS, TCFD, EU taxonomy, and more. Besides creating reliable ESG transparency, the solution also allows business leaders to improve a company's sustainability performance by supporting informed decisions and acting based on actionable insights
To improve data accuracy and reliability, we must shift from using averages to capturing actual data. Instead of relying on generalized estimates, our goal is to document precise measurements and outcomes from our clients' operations.
With SAP Sustainability Control Tower (SCT), our clients’ ESG metrics are audit-ready, ensuring strong assurance and control capabilities. Additionally, comprehensive reporting mechanisms enable them to provide trustworthy transparency to stakeholders, regulators, and auditors.
To further integrate ESG into business processes, we are expanding capabilities beyond insights and target setting. This includes sustainability initiative management, forecasting, and scenario planning, helping clients make ESG an integral part of their operations and seamlessly align sustainability goals with daily business activities.
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Learn more about SAP Sustainability Control TowerSAP Sustainability Control TowerSAP Sustainability Control Tower | Product Tour
Carbon Management and Accounting
Carbon Management and Accounting is by now an established need amongst sustainability professionals including the CFO, CSO and CPO who all require granular, audit ready data on carbon emissions to report on regulations such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Directive (CSRD), or to go beyond reporting by embedding carbon data into internal business processes and supply chains, and combine them with financial data, all to enable data-driven carbon emissions reduction. Our three main products for this category are
SAP Sustainability Footprint Management
SAP Sustainability Footprint Management (SFM) empowers companies to accelerate their net-zero goals by providing a clear view of their climate impact and enhancing performance across the entire value chain.
By leveraging a mix of actual carbon data and industry averages, SAP SFM ensures consistent and accurate carbon footprint calculations, enabling businesses to track, measure, and improve their sustainability performance over time.
One of the biggest challenges in carbon accounting is data access and accuracy. SAP SFM addresses this by seamlessly integrating data from ERP systems and third-party sources, allowing companies to leverage existing data effortlessly.
With SAP’s deep expertise in financial reporting, SFM delivers audit-proof, cradle-to-gate carbon footprint calculations that meet carbon disclosure requirements. This includes emissions from materials, transportation, and production, ensuring compliance with evolving ESG standards.
By providing granular carbon data, SAP SFM enables businesses to move beyond reporting and take targeted, data-driven action to decarbonize their operations. With powerful analytics and scenario planning, companies can embed sustainability into core business processes and make strategic decisions that drive real impact.
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Learn more about SAP Sustainability Footprint ManagementSAP Sustainability Footprint Management | Carbon Accounting SoftwareSustainability Footprint Management product tour
SAP Sustainability Data Exchange
SAP Sustainability Data Exchange (SDX) is a SAP Business Network solution designed to help buyers and suppliers to seamlessly communicate and manage Scope 3 emissions data across the supply chain. SDX enables trading partners to securely exchange product carbon footprint data, fostering transparency and collaboration in emissions reporting.
Key Capabilities:
Trusted & Auditable Data Exchange: SDX ensures compliance with industry standards such as WBCSD PACT and Catena-X, allowing organizations to share carbon footprint data in a reliable and verifiable manner.
Interoperable & Industry-Agnostic: Built for cross-industry collaboration, SDX integrates seamlessly with existing sustainability frameworks and carbon accounting methodologies.
Accurate Carbon Accounting: By leveraging actual supplier data, companies can move beyond estimates and averages, significantly improving carbon footprint accuracy.
Seamless Integration with SAP’s Sustainability Solutions: SDX works in tandem with SAP Sustainability Footprint Management (SFM) and the Green Ledger, supporting SAP’s sustainability vision for transactional carbon accounting. Together, these solutions enable organizations to track, report, and actively reduce Scope 3 emissions, driving meaningful progress toward net-zero goals.
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Learn more about SAP Sustainability Data ExchangeSAP Sustainability Data Exchange | SAPSAP Sustainability Data Exchange | Product Tour
SAP Green Ledger
SAP Green Ledger is a centralized solution that enables businesses to account for greenhousegas(GHG) emissionswith the same rigor as financial data. By seamlessly integrating with SAP S/4HANA Finance, it bridges the gap between sustainability accounting and financial reporting, ensuring accurate emissions tracking across the enterprise.
Through deep integration with SAP Sustainability Footprint Management, SAP Datasphere, and SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Green Ledger collects, processes, and reports GHG emissions data from multiple sources, enabling auditable, data-driven sustainability decisions.
Combines financial & sustainability accounting for a holistic view of business impact.
Enhances auditability & compliance with structured emissions tracking.
Improves decision-making by providing real-time emissions data linked to financial metrics.
By aligning carbon accounting with financial reporting, SAP Green Ledger empowers organizations to make informed, sustainable business decisions while ensuring regulatory compliance.
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Learn more about SAP Green LedgerSAP Green LedgerSAP Green Ledger Product Tour | Carbon Accounting Software
Circularity
Circularity (also known as "Circular Economy") is a system framework aiming to eliminate waste, recycle and reuse materials, and regenerate nature through re-designing the ways we use materials and resources. For example, switching from high-emission materials to low-emission materials (e.g. from virgin plastic to recycled plastic) can greatly cut emissions and hence contribute to decarbonization goals. Global regulations drive this transition to Circularity forward. Driven by these regulations as well as business needs, our solutions help customers comply with regulations such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), EU-Ecodesign, the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification standard (ISCC) and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), while also finding ways to reduce water, waste and emissions.
The first major solution from SAP Circularity, SAP Responsible Design and Production (RDP), enables businesses to eliminate waste and deliver their commitments. Currently focusing on plastic, the solution helps companies to manage packaging regulations and plastic taxes (e.g. already live in the UK and Spain), and simplifies the ability for product designers and brand managers to optimize material choices and design for circularity.
SAP Responsible Design and Production
SAP Responsible Design and Production (RDP) is a leading solution for managing Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) obligations and plastic taxes, while also enabling companies to design a more sustainable product portfolio.
- The solution automatically calculates required fees based on packaging compositions and generates compliance reports for producer responsibility organizations, tax authorities, and key NGOs, including the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
- As a public cloud solution, SAP RDP ensures continuous updates with new features and functionalities to keep businesses aligned with evolving sustainability regulations.
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For a deep dive into Circular Economy and RDP, watch the following video
Also in the Circularity space, we offer SAP Green Token, which allows customers to prove the sustainability of their raw materials and meet standards and regulations by leveraging tokenization, segregated or mass balance accounting and blockchain capabilities.
SAP Green Token
Enabling Supply Chain Transparency: SAP GreenToken is a cloud-based SaaS solution designed to create traceability and transparency in material flows using segregation, mass balancing, and tokenization.
Its primary goal is to ensure trust and compliance with evolving sustainability standards and regulations.
The solution enables material flow accounting, proof-of-sustainability documentation, and reporting & auditing.
Flexible deployment options:
- Seamless integration with SAP ERP.
- Open APIs for integration with non-SAP systems.
- Scalable CSV-exports for easy data handling.
While GreenToken is a supply chain network solution, onboarding an entire network is optional. It can also function as a standalone system while still supporting compliance.
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Learn more about SAP Green TokenSAP Green Token | Supply Chain Compliance SoftwareSAP Green Token | Take the Product Tour
Operational Compliance
- Definition & Relevance
Operational compliance refers to an organization's ability to meet regulatory, environmental, and safety requirements to ensure its license to operate. Traditionally crucial for industries like manufacturing and chemicals, this need now extends across value chains, especially as businesses face growing expectations around environmental, health, safety, and operational compliance.
SAP Environment, Health & Safety Management (EHS) and SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Product Compliance are core solutions addressing these needs. With growing complexity in global supply chains, operational compliance now also involves monitoring and mitigating risks across suppliers and logistics networks.
- Trends & Market Signals
- Informal Labor Risks: Over 2 billion people globally (60% of the workforce) operate in informal jobs without protections, increasing compliance exposure for businesses relying on extended supply networks (ILO, 2023).
- Hazardous Waste: Each person generates nearly 60 kg of hazardous waste annually, with growing scrutiny on how companies manage and track this across production and supply (The World Counts, 2024).
- Executive Pressure: 89% of executives say regulatory risk is a primary driver for improving social responsibility (Gartner Insights, 2024).
- Financial Impact: Companies with strong operational compliance policies see up to 13% lower cost of equity, making compliance a business advantage (McKinsey, 2024).
- Challenges
- Balancing environmental stewardship with economic growth and cost pressures.
- Inconsistent or unclear regulations across supply markets and regions.
- Limited visibility into supplier practices, especially across second- and third-tier suppliers.
- Difficulties in reporting and tracking compliance efforts across decentralized supply chains.
- Pressure to act quickly while managing long-term sustainability goals and addressing stakeholder expectations.
- Why SAP
SAP empowers organizations to extend operational compliance across their entire value chain, providing integrated solutions that address both internal operations and supplier collaboration:
- Environmental Compliance: SAP EHS Management for SAP S/4HANA Cloud helps track and report air pollutants, greenhouse gases (GHG), and wastewater emissions, streamlining regulatory environmental compliance and reducing environmental impact sustainably.
- Worker & Environmental Safety: SAP EHS identifies and mitigates workplace hazards, supports connected workers, and improves situational awareness through real-time data and IoT integrations.
- Regulatory Assurance & Transparency: SAP S/4HANA for Product Compliance enables automated classification and oversight of dangerous goods across production and distribution, ensuring compliance from plant to shelf.
- Supplier Risk Monitoring: Through SAP Business Network and sustainability data integrations, companies can assess and collaborate with suppliers on regulatory requirements and ESG targets.
- Centralized Reporting & Incident Management: Real-time dashboards and streamlined documentation improve visibility across the enterprise and supply chain, ensuring faster, compliant responses.
- Cost Efficiency: Automation, analytics, and embedded regulatory updates reduce manual work and ensure organizations remain audit-ready.
SAP Environment Health and Safety
EHS solutions are divided into two main categories: SAP S/4HANA Cloud for EHS workplace safety and SAP S/4HANA Cloud for EHS environment management. SAP S/4HANA Cloud for EHS workplace safety solutions focus on proactively reducing risk, minimizing incidents, and managing operational changes through an integrated approach that can be flexibly applied at the process level. SAP S/4HANA Cloud for EHS environment management, on the other hand, tracks all aspects of environmental impact from the corporate level down to individual operations, providing a flexible and auditable process for calculating emissions and waste generation.
The following figure provides an overview of SAP's EHS Solution Portfolio.
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Learn more about SAP EHS Solution PortfolioLet's take a look at SAP S/4HANA Cloud for EHS workplace safety:
The objective is to proactively reducing risk, reducing incidents, and manage operational changes by providing an integrated approach that can be flexibly implement at the process level.
There are various options for entering incident data, including mobile and offline entry, which provides flexibility for users. The system also offers a flexible engine for risk assessment and mitigation. It directly integrates with ERP and HR processes to streamline operations. The platform features workflow-driven notifications, investigation steps, task tracking, and MOC change requests to ensure that incidents are handled efficiently. It also provides real-time incident rate calculations, analytical reports, and dashboard views for comprehensive analysis. Additionally, the system allows for real-time onsite chemical inventory tracking to ensure the safety and compliance of the workplace.
What are the benefits?
- Increased situational awareness for operations and work locations
- Breakdown of silos for safety management processes and initiatives
- Reduced financial and operational risk through the proactive tracking of compliance issues
- Consistent user interface and software standards that reduce risk and effort related to user training
- Improved transparency and auditability
S/4HANA Cloud for Product Compliance
There are hundreds of regulations such as Reduction of Hazardous Substance regulations (RoHS), REACH, Toxic Substances Control Act, etc that introduce compliance requirements on substances in products and components.
To secure their right to market, companies that manufacture or sell products must ensure that their product comply with all applicable regulations, do not contain forbidden or harmful substances, are packaged and shipped safely, and fulfill various other requirements from different stakeholders.
Product compliance is also an integral part of sustainability, as effective product stewardship is crucial to ensure safe products, improve supply chain transparency and implement due diligence, and protect people and nature by phasing out substances of concern in products.
SAP S/4HANA for product compliance is the global solution that manage global compliance requirements and streamline compliance processes, Closely integrated with the SAP Business Suite, compliance checks are automatically performed in business processes including design, procurement, manufacturing, sales, and delivery to ensure compliance across the product lifecycle. The solution has 3 main capabilities:
- Product marketability and component compliance - ensure that products and components comply with legal and stakeholder requirements to protect the right to market products and safeguard revenue
- Compliance document management - provide compliant hazard communication, e.g. with safety data sheets and labels, to accelerate product introduction
- Dangerous goods management - enable safe and compliant transportation of hazardous materials to protect brand value and avoid delivery disruptions
Summary
Now that you have gotten to know every product, take another look at our portfolio and try to remember for each product
- which capability category the product caters to
- what the main purpose of the product is.