This blog post concludes my blog series on the main product capabilities of SAP Sustainability Footprint Management. After importing business data, mapping to emission factors, and finally calculating and analyzing sustainability footprints, this edition describes how you can integrate those footprints to extend your SAP S/4HANA end-to-end business processes. I’m covering:
If you are not yet familiar with the application, I recommend you start reading my blog post Introducing Carbon Accounting with SAP Sustainability Footprint Management here in the SAP Community first.
One of the key benefits of SAP Sustainability Footprint Management is the integration of calculated footprints into the company’s end-to-end business processes. This is providing transparency and insights into sustainability metrics to business users, thus enabling them to take sustainability criteria into their decision-making processes. In the Monitor Footprints app, a "Publish"-button can be clicked to transfer the calculation results (CO2e per unit) into the connected ERP source system. We're supporting an integration into SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA (2021 and later). More details can be found in the SAP Help: Publishing a Footprint Results.
In SAP S/4HANA, the published footprints are stored in the Sustainability Integration Component. Business users can now access those - for example, via the View Product Footprints or Product Carbon Footprint apps.
For integrating the published footprints into your business processes, you can leverage the Key User Extensibility in SAP S/4HANA. See this blog post for details: Extending business processes with product footprints using the Key User Extensibility in SAP S/4HANA.
We also plan over time to integrate footprints into more and more SAP S/4HANA applications and processes natively, so that business users have direct access to this information in their daily job. The first scenarios are delivered in Purchasing and Inventory Management.
A direct integration of product footprints into Purchase Requisitions (PR) is the first SAP S/4HANA Purchase process integration scenario. With this feature, footprints are displayed on PR Item level, enabling for example the PR approver to also see the footprint of the Purchase Requisition, next to the financial value. An operational purchaser can now also analyze the environmental impact of the PRs that the person is responsible for within the Monitor Purchase Requisition Items application. This app displays not only completed purchases but also those requested for future delivery, offering valuable insights into anticipated emissions. By leveraging this information, proactive measures can be taken to optimize the environmental footprint. It's planned to integrate the footprint also into the Purchase Order in future releases.
Another direct integration is already available in SAP S/4HANA Inventory Management (MM-IM), starting with the Stock – Multiple Materials app. This enhancement offers insights into the environmental impact of the stocks overseen by the inventory manager. Previously, the app was employed to obtain a summary of stock quantities and their corresponding financial values. Now, it's feasible to also incorporate sustainability criteria into decision-making processes. The app retrieves the footprint data from the Integration Component and presents the footprints for each material by multiplying it with the relevant quantity. We also aim to expand the integration to encompass more Inventory Management processes and applications, such as Inventory KPI Analysis.
For incorporating sustainability into your supply chain planning process, an integration of footprints into SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is available as well. You can use the calculated footprint results to track your facilities' Greenhouse Gas emissions according to the supply planning heuristic results. SAP IBP enables you to visualize your plants' emissions on a geographic map and incorporate them into your production plan. Global supply chain planners can leverage the Intelligent Visibility app to examine the calculated footprint, which is determined by multiplying the long-term production plan's receipts with the product-location footprint. They can then develop scenarios in the Planner Workspace to address the alerts. Preconfigured content including alerts, charts, procedure playbooks, intelligent visibility profiles, is available as part of the SAP Best Practices for SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain.
Furthermore, we delivered the first Carbon Data Exchange use case leveraging the SAP Business Network, through integrating footprints into SAP Business Network Material Traceability. The solution improves visibility and transparency in supply chains, by capturing and exchanging material provenance information and alerts with business partners. This involves multi-tier sharing of product attributes, batch details, and now also CO2e footprints for batch-managed materials. The footprints are calculated by SAP Sustainability Footprint Management and integrated via SAP S/4HANA. For more information, see SAP Help: Sustainability in Material Traceability.
The planned enrichments in SAP S/4HANA are mentioned in the previous sections already. Besides, we're planning to enhance the outbound integration into Business Networks. This enables sustainability experts to publish product footprints to networks or portals, one-by-one for specific products or customer channels, or via mass publishing on special criteria. This will improve your customer relationships, streamline processes with electronic data exchange, and enhance information transparency. As always for carbon data sharing, we intend to support the World Business Council for Sustainable Development's Partnership for Carbon Transparency (WBCSD PACT) standard. An integration to SAP Sustainability Data Exchange to send actual emission data to customers is planned as well.
Furthermore, we also plan to integrate SAP Sustainability Footprint Management with SAP Sustainability Control Tower, allowing for holistic steering and reporting of product, corporate, and value chain emissions data, which will be linked to specific business operations.
For an overview of all planned innovations and their benefit for you and your company, have a look into SAP Road Map Explorer.
- SAP S/4HANA & S/4HANA Cloud
- Purchasing
- Inventory Management
- SAP Integrated Business Planning
- SAP Business Network
- Outlook
If you are not yet familiar with the application, I recommend you start reading my blog post Introducing Carbon Accounting with SAP Sustainability Footprint Management here in the SAP Community first.
SAP S/4HANA & S/4HANA Cloud
One of the key benefits of SAP Sustainability Footprint Management is the integration of calculated footprints into the company’s end-to-end business processes. This is providing transparency and insights into sustainability metrics to business users, thus enabling them to take sustainability criteria into their decision-making processes. In the Monitor Footprints app, a "Publish"-button can be clicked to transfer the calculation results (CO2e per unit) into the connected ERP source system. We're supporting an integration into SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA (2021 and later). More details can be found in the SAP Help: Publishing a Footprint Results.
In SAP S/4HANA, the published footprints are stored in the Sustainability Integration Component. Business users can now access those - for example, via the View Product Footprints or Product Carbon Footprint apps.
View Product Footprints App in SAP S/4HANA Cloud
For integrating the published footprints into your business processes, you can leverage the Key User Extensibility in SAP S/4HANA. See this blog post for details: Extending business processes with product footprints using the Key User Extensibility in SAP S/4HANA.
We also plan over time to integrate footprints into more and more SAP S/4HANA applications and processes natively, so that business users have direct access to this information in their daily job. The first scenarios are delivered in Purchasing and Inventory Management.
Purchasing
A direct integration of product footprints into Purchase Requisitions (PR) is the first SAP S/4HANA Purchase process integration scenario. With this feature, footprints are displayed on PR Item level, enabling for example the PR approver to also see the footprint of the Purchase Requisition, next to the financial value. An operational purchaser can now also analyze the environmental impact of the PRs that the person is responsible for within the Monitor Purchase Requisition Items application. This app displays not only completed purchases but also those requested for future delivery, offering valuable insights into anticipated emissions. By leveraging this information, proactive measures can be taken to optimize the environmental footprint. It's planned to integrate the footprint also into the Purchase Order in future releases.
Displaying Footprints in SAP S/4HANA Monitor Purchase Requisition App
Inventory Management
Another direct integration is already available in SAP S/4HANA Inventory Management (MM-IM), starting with the Stock – Multiple Materials app. This enhancement offers insights into the environmental impact of the stocks overseen by the inventory manager. Previously, the app was employed to obtain a summary of stock quantities and their corresponding financial values. Now, it's feasible to also incorporate sustainability criteria into decision-making processes. The app retrieves the footprint data from the Integration Component and presents the footprints for each material by multiplying it with the relevant quantity. We also aim to expand the integration to encompass more Inventory Management processes and applications, such as Inventory KPI Analysis.
Displaying Footprints in SAP S/4HANA Stock - Multiple Materials App
SAP Integrated Business Planning
For incorporating sustainability into your supply chain planning process, an integration of footprints into SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is available as well. You can use the calculated footprint results to track your facilities' Greenhouse Gas emissions according to the supply planning heuristic results. SAP IBP enables you to visualize your plants' emissions on a geographic map and incorporate them into your production plan. Global supply chain planners can leverage the Intelligent Visibility app to examine the calculated footprint, which is determined by multiplying the long-term production plan's receipts with the product-location footprint. They can then develop scenarios in the Planner Workspace to address the alerts. Preconfigured content including alerts, charts, procedure playbooks, intelligent visibility profiles, is available as part of the SAP Best Practices for SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain.
Footprint Integration in SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP)
SAP Business Network
Furthermore, we delivered the first Carbon Data Exchange use case leveraging the SAP Business Network, through integrating footprints into SAP Business Network Material Traceability. The solution improves visibility and transparency in supply chains, by capturing and exchanging material provenance information and alerts with business partners. This involves multi-tier sharing of product attributes, batch details, and now also CO2e footprints for batch-managed materials. The footprints are calculated by SAP Sustainability Footprint Management and integrated via SAP S/4HANA. For more information, see SAP Help: Sustainability in Material Traceability.
Footprint Integration in SAP Business Network Material Traceability
Outlook
The planned enrichments in SAP S/4HANA are mentioned in the previous sections already. Besides, we're planning to enhance the outbound integration into Business Networks. This enables sustainability experts to publish product footprints to networks or portals, one-by-one for specific products or customer channels, or via mass publishing on special criteria. This will improve your customer relationships, streamline processes with electronic data exchange, and enhance information transparency. As always for carbon data sharing, we intend to support the World Business Council for Sustainable Development's Partnership for Carbon Transparency (WBCSD PACT) standard. An integration to SAP Sustainability Data Exchange to send actual emission data to customers is planned as well.
Furthermore, we also plan to integrate SAP Sustainability Footprint Management with SAP Sustainability Control Tower, allowing for holistic steering and reporting of product, corporate, and value chain emissions data, which will be linked to specific business operations.
For an overview of all planned innovations and their benefit for you and your company, have a look into SAP Road Map Explorer.
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