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.
This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.
SAP on Monday unveiled a multifront sustainability push including the launch of an EHS--or environment, health, and safety--management application.
The company unveiled its plans at CeBit (statement). Among the moving parts:
• SAP has teamed with TechniData to offer line of EHS applications, dubbed SAP Environment, Health and Safety Management. The goal of the EHS application is to make sure corporate sustainability policies are met and ensure a company is meeting its regulatory targets. In other wordis trying to align business processes with the enterprise's green IT talks, SAP .
• SAP said it plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 51 percent from its 2007 levels by 2020. If successful, SAP will cut its carbon dioxide levels to year 2000 levels.
• And SAP announced that Peter Graf, will be the company's first chief sustainability officer. Graf will report to SAP Executive Board member Jim Hagermann Snabe.
In a blog post, Graf said:
Sustainability is about much more than environmental concerns or "being green". It's the ability to holistically manage economic, social and environmental risks and opportunities for increased profitability.
I'll be curious to see how this line of software sells amid weak IT spending.
It seems to be the latest fad among the SAP crowd. First, Shai Agassi raises $200 million for Project Better Place, which hopes to install electric charging stations and kick start the electric car industry.
Now Hasso Plattner, SAP's founder, has raised a fund, approximately worth $45 million, to invest in start-ups in South Africa, according to publications in that country. A portion of the funds will go to clean-tech companies. Originally from Germany, Plattner currently owns golf courses in South Africa.
Like many nations (Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, the U.S., China, and Japan), South Africa has set its sights on being a center for clean-technology development. It has universities, a government interested in creating high-tech exports, and quite a bit of sun. That's important if you want to experiment with solar. South Africa also has a lot of experience in making liquid car fuel out of coal. During the Apartheid era, it was tough for the country to get oil. Thus, it erected Fischer-Tropsch plants. With oil trading around $100 a barrel, some believe that liquid fuel from coal could become popular. (The emissions on liquid coal, however, are not good.)
So far, however, South Africa's main tech exports have been emigrants such as Elon Musk (Tesla Motors, SpaceX, PayPal) and Lyndon Rive (Solar City).
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