SAP buys into carbon management
Having mastered ways to automate manufacturing and dozens of other business processes, SAP is now acquiring expertise in managing carbon emissions.
The enterprise software giant said on Monday it has acquired 2-year-old, privately held Clear Standards, a Sterling, Va.-based software company with tools for tracking and reporting a corporation's environmental impact. No financial terms were disclosed.
The iPhone client for Clear Standards' CarbonTracker enterprise carbon-management software.
(Credit: Clear Standards)Clear Standards' Web-based hosted applications are designed to help a company develop a strategy for managing carbon emissions and reducing its environmental impact. The software can create an inventory of a company's emissions and then give an environmental regulations manager, for example, a way to track efforts to reduce energy and waste.
There are no mandatory restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., although both the House and the Senate are working on bills that would affect heavy polluters, such as utilities and large manufacturers.
SAP said that the carbon management software is designed for companies that are regulated, such as heavy polluters in Europe, as well companies that are doing voluntary sustainability programs. The Clear Standards software will be integrated with SAP application financial data and its Environment, Health, and Safety Management application.
"It is essential that organizations gain actionable insight into their carbon emissions, water consumption, energy use and other environmental factors so they can lower their environmental impact," said SAP co-CEO Leo Apotheker, in a statement. "Having this ability also correlates to an organization's efficiency and competitiveness."
Anticipating broader demand for carbon management software, a few companies have developed carbon management software for tracking and reporting emissions. Planet Metrics, for example, has a tool for managing internal emissions and deciding on the most effective way to meet voluntary or mandatory goals.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
Just look at your water consumption and electric consumption. You can download them nowadays from your utility companies and work from there, duh! Shouldn't take 30 minutes each month to do the download and the calcs. You keep track of how your water and electric bill goes to see if you have achieved your goals.
Oh, wait, you want some legalese way to redefine what a carbon footprint is and you need a smokescreen of complex software so that the auditors will be amazed that indeed, by some complex magic, your carbon footprint is now lower, for doing actually nothing, just running the software.
If I were the carbon footprint auditor, I would simply look at your water and electric bills, that alone tells everything if you're lowering your carbon footprint.