SAP Sustainability - How to Create a Sustainable Supply Chain

What are the challenges around supply chain sustainability when running an SAP landscape and how do you start to achieve better planet, people and performance outcomes?

What contribution can your SAP digital supply chain landscape make to your sustainability goals?

If you are working within a supply chain intensive business and are looking to achieve tangible gains and you are running SAP software, then you have plenty of tools at your disposal to get underway either with your existing SAP ERP Business Suite (SAP ECC), or when moving to S/4HANA or adding SAP Digital Supply Chain solutions such as SAP Extended Warehouse Management, SAP Transportation Management and SAP Integrated Business Planning....

Why is sustainability in the supply chain so important?

A considerable amount of the environmental impact associated with many sectors is embedded in the supply chain, and as a result, there are numerous opportunities to positively impact sustainability goals. Furthermore, there are rapidly increasing legislative requirements to be met such as Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting Regulations (SECR), which include greenhouse gases (GHG), Obligated Packaging Producers and Extended Producer Responsibilities (EPR).

See real customer examples of supply chain sustainability improvements achieved with SAP Business Suite, S/4 and Digital Supply Chain platforms like EWM, TM and the SAP Business Technology Platform.

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You are not alone in navigating this complexity, many senior c-suite stakeholders are still trying to understand how to:

• Design clear sustainability goals that will move the business towards net zero.
• Socialise these within the business to gain momentum towards implementation of solutions to achieve the goals.
• Measure and report on the progress against targets and ensuring they can fulfil their industries reporting needs as required.

Speaking regularly with senior stakeholders in leading supply chain and product intensive businesses in the UK, it is clear many do not have clarity on their sustainability goals; or how to achieve them.  Many are being forced to adopt specific compliance and reporting needs but have not yet considered the underlying supply chain processes. Organisational readiness or appetite is still lagging in many cases, with sustainability champions working in silos without broader sponsorship or funding.

Even within those businesses that have adopted sustainability led supply chain strategies and are achieving fantastic outcomes, there will be ongoing opportunities to extend the reach into other aspects of the business and tackle emerging challenges and related compliance changes. So, sustainability improvements must been seen as continuous and a lasting approach used.

What we see is that building momentum is key to moving businesses away from the paralysis of dealing with large theoretical goals that are too far in the future to drive action now; this is exactly where Rocket are helping business to make sustainability REAL.

Relatable, Educated, Achievable & Lasting.

There are many ways the end-to-end supply chain functions of a business can contribute to sustainability goals, the importance of each varying with different industries.

"Common to many businesses supply chains, warehouse and logistics processes is where we recommend starting as a catalyst to sustainability momentum, with many practical people-performance-planet gains for the taking. Furthermore, the gains are typically easy to socialise, gain sponsorship and in most cases self-funding through good financial return on investment.”

Lewis Marston Rocket CEO

Below we put supply chain sustainability under the microscope and show what the benefits of improved sustainability within the supply chain when viewed through the Rocket Sustainability Launchpad can be; while also contributing to the overarching net-zero and carbon emission goals for a business.

Our unique approach and long-standing logistics, supply chain management and SAP expertise will ensure you create optimised ways of working for real people in the real world by:

• Design products that are recyclable & sustainable.
• Plan source ethically, reduce energy use and emissions waste.
• Manufacture efficiently, reducing waste.
• Deliver using warehouse and logistics processes that minimize footprint.
• Operate compliantly with appropriate ESG and performance insights to achieve goals and report. Assets & equipment to remain reliable, safe for people and the planet and energy-efficient.

Getting sustainability onto the agenda

This is much easier when an organisation adopts a shift of perspective to look at the wider benefits of an improvement or transformation project.

The Rocket Sustainability Launchpad helps businesses do just that, creating a new perspective that goes beyond the typical cost & performance only measure.

• People – improved and inclusive ways of working, making the most of the workforce.
• Performance – operation efficiencies and cost savings.
• Planet – contribution to reduced environmental impact.

Rocket and the UKISUG Webinar

SAP Supply Chain Sustainability

Get started today, and view the replay.

Watch the webinar to understand how you can get started with practical, tangible supply chain led improvements to enable and fund sustainability goals using SAP.

Hear real customer examples of supply chain improvements that support sustainability goals. These include live and in-flight projects, all achieved with SAP Business Suite, S/4 and Digital Supply Chain platforms like Extended Warehouse Management, Transportation Management and the SAP Business Technology Platform.