Calculating Transport Footprints

SAP Sustainability Footprint Management helps you calculate transport emissions at scale by combining information from the ERP system with routing algorithms and pre-configured content. 

The product comes with a large amount of pre-configured content and automations regarding routing information, vehicle use, and consumption.

The product supports multi-modal milk runs that consist of transport chains with multi-stops, transport legs, and transport modes. It further supports round trips with individual pick-ups and deliveries.

In the Calculate Transport Footprints app, you import transactional data into the system through semi-automated CSV files.

There are two different formats:

• Shipment data
• Stop data

After the import, the system matches the headers of the CSV file to the target data structure.

The calculation of inbound and outbound transport footprints relates to GHG Protocol Scope 3.4 (upstream transportation), Scope 3.9 (downstream transportation), and Scope 1 (Direct emissions related to company-owned vehicles). The calculation is currently possible by uploading CSV files. Those files must contain information about the start location, the end location, and the weight of the transport. If more detailed information is available, you can also enter this information.

To calculate the footprint results, the application calculates the respective distances and hence emissions. It either uses configured client-specific transport routes or an automated calculation logic based on the great circle distance. As soon as the application processes the data, the data is automatically validated. It provides detailed feedback on issues in the data (for example, incorrect postal codes).

You can adjust these issues to successfully trigger the calculation or improve the results. You can present valuable information to review if calculations are successful, if the right data is drawn (for example, the number of parcels and shipments), or if the correct scenario is selected.

You can integrate the calculation results into the overall footprint calculation, enabling you to view freight transport emissions within your footprint inventory. For doing so, you need to include the relevant transport value chain steps in the Manage Footprint Inventory Scopesapp. In the Calculate Footprints app, you must add the Transportation Scenario that you’ve defined for calculating the transport footprints.

Note

For more information, see Using the Manage Footprint Inventory Scopes Application and Calculating Organizational Footprint Inventory in the SAP Help Portal.

After successful calculation, the freight transport emissions are integrated in the Manage Footprint Results app, and you can view those in the respective tables as well as the Sankey chart. Additionally, the Footprint Overviewapp now includes the calculated transport emissions in the relevant charts.

In the Transport section itself, Manage Calculation app is used to simplify the user experience by merging the apps for starting and managing the calculation and its results In this app, you can now upload transport data, calculate transport footprints, and troubleshoot calculation errors.

First, you can import your shipment or stop data via file upload, a template is provided within the app. In the next step, the calculation is triggered, which involves leg creation, validation, and the actual calculation of the emissions. Leg creation is the process where transportation legs are created. The validation process ensures that the data is error-free, after which the calculation process is initiated. You can view errors and notices that are encountered while processing the data, directly in the same app.

Note

Errors must be corrected for calculations to proceed, while notices are recommendations or informational messages that don’t halt the calculation process. In case of errors, you can download a file with all the information, correct the erroneous entries, and import the same file into the application. If the issue is within the configuration, you can correct or add the respective configuration in the Manage Data application and re-initiate the processes. If required, you also have the option to delete a request ID. For all details, see Using the Manage Calculations Application in the SAP Help Portal.

For calculating transport footprints without configuring and importing data, the Calculate Transport Footprints - Lite app allows you to perform fast calculations and assessments on the transport footprint of a single shipment. The impact of actions, for example switching the Transport Mode from Plane to Ship can be assessed and simulated. An input mask is provided to enter the data of the transport(s) that should be considered. The calculated results are visualized in a chart and table, the route is displayed on a world map.