BERLIN (Reuters) - Software group SAP (DE:SAPG) launched a product on Tuesday to help firms track greenhouse gas emissions in their supply chains, backing a view that being transparent about their carbon footprint will be good for business.
The German company, which counts 440,000 customers and touches 77% of global transaction revenue, sees itself as uniquely positioned to track carbon dioxide emissions that are a major cause of climate change.
Taking a more holistic approach towards the inputs that go into making everything from cars to food will become more important as customers weigh the environmental impact of their purchasing decisions.
"CO2 efficiency will become a differentiator for companies," Thomas Saueressig, the SAP executive board member in charge of product engineering, told reporters.
Saueressig is launching the CO2 tracking product at SAP's annual Sapphire Now user conference, being held online this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The event had a rocky start on Monday when the site hosting it crashed.
The product, called SAP Carbon Footprint Analytics, will generate so-called network effects, getting smarter as more SAP customers adopt it, he said. It can drive product ratings and support audits of a firm's carbon footprint.
Saueressig declined to say how much SAP had invested in the product, but said the sum was significant and forecast it would generate an economic return.