Sustainable Life Media carries this item with an 18-minute video of SAP Chief Sustainability Officer Peter Graf explaining how analytics is the name of the green IT game. Not only does the power of analytics unlock savings that drive business to be more green, but the information provided by green data analysis provides the ammunition to bid for scarce corporate resources. You have to have the data to sell green programs internally.
It's not just that a sustainability project, for example to make the firm more energy efficient, will save money, says Graf. "The question is if your investment in making your organization more energy efficient is a better investment than all the other investments a company can do. That's why we in sustainability need to use the tools that those people running the business understand, so that we can bring together what we think is needed in order to create a better world, to do less bad and do more good, and to compete more effectively with all other ideas the company has."
"Analytics is the core of this process."
"This type of analytics, and the visibility you have is a must-have tool in my eyes to be able to compete with those people who are using these tools to make the case for going after a new market, going and building a new product, etc."
"That’s what analytics do, they can look into your operational system and drag out the information."
Graf shows examples of some of the analytical tools and data SAP itself has used to identify areas where significant savings are possible. "Since 2007, we saved the company a quarter billion dollars in energy because we see where the energy is used, because we use analytics." The analysis of data from throughout SAP's operations and facilities showed places where substantial savings were possible. The result was that SAP was able to reduce carbon emissions 6% while sales rose 20% 2009-2010. You need these tools to compete within the company for money for sustainability projects.
A good little talk, and worth watching.
SAP's latest quarterly report is here. See this SAP Greenhouse Gas Emissions Up for some comments.
[Thanks to KloudData green data management intern Shaurin Jani for his help with this post!]