SAP Data Centres To Run On 100 Percent Renewable Power

Enterprise software provider SAP has announced it plans to have all of its its data centres running entirely on renewable energy sources.

The news will help the company minimise its carbon footprint as it looks to move towards a cloud business model, and is part of a larger initiative to move customer systems to a green cloud in order to further eliminate carbon emissions. The move emphasises SAP’s commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from operations to levels of the year 2000 by 2020.

Green leadership

“Committing to 100 percent renewable electricity in our data centers and facilities is a natural consequence of our business model shift into the cloud,” Peter Graf, SAP’s chief sustainability officer said of the news.

“By delivering our industry-leading cloud solutions in an environmentally friendly fashion, we expand our competitiveness in the cloud software market while further enhancing our sustainability leadership.”

Overall, SAP’s overall energy efficiency remained steady while greenhouse gas emissions increased from 30.0 grams CO2 per euro of total revenue in 2012 to 32.4 grams CO2 per euro in 2013. At the same time, absolute carbon emissions increased by 12 percent.

Last December, the European Union announced RenewIT, a three-year  €3.6m  (£3m) project to help data centres switch across to more renewable energy sources, especially on-site generation by sun, wind and biomass, as well as helping build commercial models for renewable cooling including outside air cooling and sea water cooling.

The news was included as part of SAP’s annual Integrated Report, which combines financial, social, and environmental performance results into one report.

It included details of several new SAP projects to continue its strong environmental record, including a new initiative to encourage use of electric vehicles amongst its employees in Germany. The company will subsidise costs for any of its workers looking to purchase any electric vehicles, as a survey for the report found that eighty-nine percent of employees agreed that SAP needed to pursue sustainability as a strategic priority.

The company also launched a mobile app called TwoGo by SAP to encourage carpooling by reducing the cost of fuel, parking and business trips and emissions, and boosted its investment in charity the Livelihoods Fund, which plants trees and conducts clean energy projects in underserved rural areas around the world.

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