SAP SE and BT have announced an innovative partnership aimed at demonstrating the potential standardisation of carbon accounting for business customers. This initiative involves the pilot implementation of the newly launched SAP Sustainability Data Exchange (SDX).
SAP SDX offers BT the capability to gather, track, and disseminate carbon-related data throughout its supplier network. This affords BT an unprecedented level of transparency into the carbon footprint associated with its business products and services. Subsequently, BT can directly furnish this data to its customers when they make purchases via the SAP Business Network. Additionally, BT can enhance this offering with data-driven insights from its Digital Carbon Calculator and Carbon Network Dashboard, enabling customers to optimise their IT infrastructure for both carbon emissions and energy efficiency.
A pivotal factor in selecting SAP SDX for this endeavour was its alignment with the carbon data interoperability standards established by the Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT), hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). This signifies that global and UK-based business customers need not implement their independent carbon accounting platforms to calculate, aggregate, and share emissions data. Instead, they can simply request this information through SAP SDX for their BT-related products and services.
BT’s commitment to standardising sustainability reporting across the value chains of global business customers reflects its dedication to addressing Scope 3 emissions and advancing environmental sustainability. This initiative is also in line with BT’s commitment, as outlined in the BT Group Manifesto, to assist customers in avoiding 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2030.
Sarwar Khan, global head of digital sustainability, Business, BT, said: “Typically, value chain emissions represent a greater proportion of a business’s carbon footprint than operational emissions. Tracking, measuring, and acting on these and bringing more suppliers and partners on the journey will not just accelerate net-zero targets, but set a new precedent for sustainability reporting. Collaboration fuels progress and access to data is fundamental to getting it right.”
“The lack of standardisation in sustainability reporting has been a roadblock to progress for too long,” commented Ryan Poggi, managing director of SAP UKI. “This creates confusion and an inability to validate real change. Our partnership with BT gives us an opportunity to refresh the guidelines and offers a blueprint for a universal standard in sustainability reporting. The aim is to create an environment for organisations to transparently tackle global challenges together.”
SAP SDX merges granular and accurate carbon data with financial transactions on the SAP Green Ledger. It provides businesses with unmatched insights into their environmental footprint and standardises how to communicate learnings and actions across value chains. In adopting SAP SDX, BT can request product-level carbon data from key suppliers for its business customer services, support smaller partners to calculate their carbon footprint and securely share and standardise this information across its value chain. To build scale, BT is working with key partner Cisco to deploy SDX to receive product carbon data for core network devices, simplify and secure data exchange with business customers backed by its global connectivity services, and boost traceability.
