Businesses and governments are racing to create a sustainable, green, and digital economy, and they are under pressure to be open about their sustainability goals.
In the Philippines, for example, the government is doing more to help communities all over the country adapt to climate change and protect the environment, people’s lives, and homes. The country gave the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Secretariat its first “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) last year. The NDC explains how it plans to reduce and avoid greenhouse gases (GHG) by 75 percent, of which 2.72 % is required. This promise applies to agriculture, waste, industry, transportation, and energy from 2020 to 2030.
In November 2022, at the UN’s 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27), the Philippine government also promised to help the host country, Egypt, in its efforts to bring the international community back together on the climate crisis. It also repeated its call for climate justice and developed countries to support climate initiatives, especially in developing countries, with money and expertise.
In the past few years, many organizations have been stepping up to help create a sustainable future by putting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into their strategic frameworks. At this year’s COP27, for example, SAP (NYSE: SAP) promised to support more global policy changes and help develop sustainable businesses by re-energizing emerging economies in their efforts to create a trillion-dollar greener impact and jobs.
A recent report by SAP and Oxford Economics also showed that 66 percent of businesses in Asia do not think it is hard to be both sustainable and profitable. But only 8% say they get a lot of value from their sustainability strategies today.
This reality may have happened because many organizations don’t follow through on their plans for sustainability. Even though 60% of businesses have shared a sustainability plan, only 20% of businesses have rewarded leaders based on how well they do their jobs. Japan is the best at this, with 68%, while Indonesia is the worst, with only 46%. Also, less than half of companies (44%) say that their employees are actively involved in their efforts to be sustainable. The highest percentage is in India, at 52%, followed by Singapore, at 51%, and Malaysia, at 33%, which has the lowest percentage.
“Businesses across Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, believe that they can boost their earnings while protecting the environment. This reality is a positive indicator to continue pushing towards sustainability. However, organizations must refocus their strategies to realize the significant value and reap better and actual outcomes,” said Rudy Abrahams, Managing Director of SAP Philippines.
At a recent media event held by SAP at its headquarters in NAC Tower, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, Rudy Abrahams, Apple Evangelista, Head, Sustainability and Social Responsibility (SSR) of Globe Group, and Henrik Batallones, Marketing and Communications Director of the Supply Chain Management Association of the Philippines (SCMAP), talked about how organizations have been changing their strategies to make sure they are sustainable.
“In the Philippines, organizations used to consider sustainability as a cost tied to regulatory compliance. But that perspective is changing. Sustainability is now seen as a strategic imperative to ensure that organizations not only provide better service to their customers but also help ensure a sustainable future,” said Batallones.
SCMAP is the country’s top supply chain group. SCMAP engages with public and private sector partners, pushing supply chain education on all levels and hosting events for supply chain professionals to connect towards global competitiveness.
Abrahams highlighted that firms in the region consider compliance the second-highest sustainability challenge (26%) after rethinking business strategy. This means firms may need to refocus their initiatives to attain higher value and sustainability.
Using organizational data to make informed decisions can improve sustainability outcomes. This takes time for firms in the Philippines, especially Globe, which has multiple entities with distinct processes and reporting formats.
Globe uses SAP to run 70% of its internal systems to handle this difficulty. The organization transitioned to SAP S/4HANA to reduce fragmented processes, manual workloads, inefficiencies, lack of insights, and delayed decision-making.
SAP Fiori apps improved user experience and insights. Automation and fewer reconciliations in finance offer speedier financial transaction processing, book closing, and error-free reporting.
Finance activities were integrated and efficient, delivering real-time business insights. IT security was increased with improved permission controls and compliance. SAP S/4HANA helped Globe Group react to business changes by supporting these enhancements.
Abrahams concurs. Businesses that achieve value from sustainability set clear strategic expectations, deploy disruptive technology and data management, and engage employees, supply chain partners, and legislators.
SAP, for example, helps firms on their sustainability journey supported by data, from pushing openness for disclosure purposes to adopting or optimizing data to generate more sustainable business processes and decisions.
SAP helps enterprises reach zero waste, zero emissions, and zero inequalities through various solutions. SAP ESG solutions portfolio delivers a scalable and comprehensive reporting platform for fast, reliable, and compliant standard regulatory reporting and internal sustainable business transformation.
SAP’s Sustainability Control Tower (SCT) solution can improve ESG transparency and sustainable company performance. SCT integrates with SAP out-of-the-box for faster time to value and granular data visibility based on actual data, not averages.
The technology allows firms to provide regulatory-compliant ESG indicators covering common frameworks with the broadest ESG ecosystem. It lets company executives act and plan with actionable data, projections, and targets, track projects, and optimize business processes.
