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Embed sustainability into core business operations

Accenture and SAP share a commitment to a sustainable future. Our partnership helps transform our clients into truly sustainable businesses.

Accenture at SAP Sapphire 2023

May 16-17 - Orlando and virtual

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Innovative sustainability strategies and solutions

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Consumers demand action on sustainability. Businesses turn to technology and to their technology partners to help them achieve sustainability goals.

Accenture and SAP form a powerful team to help clients deliver on the sustainability mission. We combine advisory, innovation and next-generation solution development in a unique partnership to help our clients shape, deliver and measure their end-to-end sustainability transformations.

As advisors, innovators and solution developers, we help clients define and enable sustainability strategies – reduce carbon footprints, for example, or curb waste – and, at the same time, create new sources of value for the business.

Schedule a discussion with our team to learn how we can partner with you to guide your sustainability journey.

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Toward the circular economy with SAP solutions

We developed a new solution with SAP to drive circular, sustainable product design – eliminating waste, improving EPR compliance and reducing costs.

Our “take, make, waste” linear economy is not sustainable. From design and sourcing to manufacturing, sales, logistics and disposal, it’s driving climate change, nature loss and inequality. At a business level, it means more risk, higher cost and wasted value.

11bn tonnes of material resources used every year

<9% of those 100bn tonnes recycled/reused

We need a different approach. The circular economy introduces a new paradigm –“take, make, take, make” – empowering companies to eliminate waste, circulate and regenerate by shifting from consumption to re-use models.

The circular economy demands an evolution in how businesses operate. Powerful regulatory and stakeholder pressures are driving the need for change:

  • Shifting policy landscape, with new fees, packaging taxes, bans, and quotas being introduced all the time
  • Competitors defining circular strategies and setting ambitious targets
  • Employees, consumers and citizens demanding change
  • Investors applying stricter sustainability targets.

SAP responsible design and production

Accenture and SAP have come together to help accelerate the transition to The Circular Economy, for a cleaner future.

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The focus on circular economy legislation is intensifying. The EU has set a high bar, introducing shared multinational circular initiatives and goals for member states to implement. But wherever companies operate, compliance with policies that encourage zero waste is now essential.

A top priority for regulators? Action on plastics and packaging. Society wants rapid change: 44% of consumers want retailers to take action and 40% will pay more for recyclable packaging. Governments are responding with new regulation.

The result: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) fees and plastic taxes are much more common.

In the EU, 25 countries have EPR fees

400+ EPR schemes in use globally

A big challenge for business? The EPR landscape is growing more complex every day. And attempting to manage this regulatory patchwork is impossible with current systems.

  • No dynamic tracking or insights by market
  • Manual data collection and estimation of material volumes
  • Static, inflexible redesign simulations.

Effective compliance with EPR regulations, SAP and Accenture have developed a holistic solution.

SAP Responsible Design and Production helps ensure compliance and save EPR-linked costs:

  • Data collation – on production, recipes, logistics, materials and sales
  • Checking volumes of materials and assessing impacts
  • Measuring and managing EPR reporting forms, fees and payments
  • Reporting for financial and sustainability reports.

Available as-a-Service, the solution benefits include:

  • Designed for openness, security, and native integration
  • Works with either SAP ECC or S/4HANA
  • Standard EPR declaration reports
  • Interfaces for packaging data from third-parties
  • Producer-specific declarations using SAP Analytics Cloud.

Your business is entering the circular economy. Our solution helps to make the transition as rapid, efficient, and seamless as possible – for many stakeholders.

Five keys to our sustainability collaboration

Only collaboration and a commitment to value and shared values can generate impact. Our comprehensive collaboration with SAP on sustainability transformation to provide insights that drive decisions across the value chain focuses on:

SDG Ambition

We help businesses embrace and action the Sustainable Development Goals, in partnership with the United Nations Global Compact.

The circular economy

We help clients take action towards a zero-waste value chain with the jointly developed SAP Responsible Design and Production solution.

Carbon accounting

We help clients track and reduce their carbon footprints across the value chain with our transformation services and SAP’s Climate 21 solutions.

ESG reporting and steering

We help organizations achieve greater transparency in reporting environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance to support regulatory demands.

Ecosystem innovators

We team with SAP.iO on engaging start-ups to build an ecosystem of complementary sustainability solutions and capabilities for our clients.

Blogs

Sustainability is the business challenge of our lifetimes.

SAP

Is your SAP system green enough?

Companies running SAP software have a huge opportunity to reduce their carbon footprints by moving to the cloud.

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SAP

RISE with SAP — are you setting sustainability ambitions high enough?

A shift to the Cloud is an ideal opportunity to embed sustainability into core business operations across the whole value chain.

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Sustainability

Aim for a circular, regenerative economy

At least a third of the 2 billion tons of waste that the world produces each year is not reused or recycled. Accenture and SAP are taking the lead to help clients accelerate the transition to a circular economy.

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News and articles

SAP makes play to be core of corporate sustainability efforts

It's time to make sustainability a standard part of corporate management, like productivity or growth. But you can't act on what you can't measure.

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Enabling the sustainable, intelligent enterprise through SAP solutions

There’s a new portfolio of SAP solutions designed to help organizations transform into an intelligent and sustainable enterprise.

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Two new sustainability cohorts at SAP.iO Foundries

Thirteen startups are building innovative solutions to drive sustainability for consumer and retail companies across the value chain.

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Shaping a new sustainable world through responsible design

A different approach to designing products and solutions can work sustainably in the long run. SAP’s President of SAP S/4HANA shares thoughts.

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SAP Responsible Design and Production

A cloud-native solution co-developed with Accenture on SAP Business Technology Platform enables businesses to keep pace with EPR regulations.

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Accelerate sustainability transformation

Accenture and SAP are expanding their partnership to help companies embed sustainability across the full spectrum of their business operations.

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Sustainable future accelerator

SAP.iO launches sustainable future accelerator program with Accenture to drive startup and partner innovation.

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SDG Ambition

The United Nations Global Compact has partnered with Accenture and SAP to help businesses achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

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Related capabilities

Accenture + SAP

Unlock the value of your SAP application portfolio with the power of intelligence, innovation and industry.

Sustainability

Helping our clients deliver on the promise of sustainable value through digital transformation.