Green Lighting Green Initiatives

By Elliott Garofalo
SVP SME Practice, Optimal Solutions Integration

One might suppose that recent economic pressures are forcing ‘green’ initiatives off the table for cash- and credit-strapped companies. While this may be the case with a handful of superficial, public-facing initiatives intended solely to enhance a company’s image – a disparaging practice known as “green washing,” the truth is that more and more companies are green lighting genuine green initiatives today because, done right, going green reduces costs and drives operational excellence, and no company today can afford to leave money on the table or let sluggish operations cut into profits.

A recent Aberdeen report Building a Green Supply Chain details the business benefits of technology-enabled green initiatives and highlights significant areas of cost-savings currently being realized by ‘best-in-class’ companies:

That “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” is a long-standing business axiom. And the measuring inherent in green initiatives is what brings corporate social responsibility into alignment with fiscal discipline. Measuring is also what makes technology an indispensable enabler for successfully going green.

Whether the goal is to reduce a carbon footprint, ensure environmentally friendly packaging, properly handle toxic materials or satisfy compliance mandates, clear metrics and automated processes must be in place to track performance and achieve green goals.

The data for these measurements is housed in SAP applications that drive core business processes and provide real-time, enterprise-wide visibility, leaving SAP customers well positioned to be leaders in the green movement as well as first-movers in the lean movement that invariably accompanies economic turmoil.

As Jeffrey Hill, senior research analyst at Aberdeen points out, “going green is really using current industry practices to leverage a more efficient infrastructure which benefits both the company and the environment.”

In the datacenter, SAP’s progress with virtualization technologies made in conjunction with its bourgeoning enterprise virtualization community is helping companies save money on server costs and power consumption–as much as 70% for some SAP customers. A recently announced joint R&D initiative between SAP Research and European IT company Bull further typifies SAP’s commitment to helping its customers leverage virtualization architectures to reduce energy footprints.

While the first step towards going green may begin in the datacenter for many companies, the journey by no means ends there. At bottom, going green in an SAP landscape represents yet another iteration of discovering business-meaningful motives and means for companies to unleash the full potential and realize the maximum value of their SAP investments.

For midsize companies deploying SAP solutions, measuring, managing, extending and sustaining enterprise-wide green initiatives is facilitated by industry best practices built into the SAP Business All-in-One solution, particularly if the green initiative touches on compliance with industry mandates for which the solution is preconfigured to address. Large enterprises leverage the adaptive capability inherent in their NetWeaver-based SAP landscape to rapidly and cost-efficiently drive business process innovation throughout global operations that yields significant gains on both the business and environmental fronts.

Generating budget for IT initiatives is never easy and always necessitates building a business case. When the business case demonstrates cost-savings or improved operations that positively impact a company’s top and bottom line–in addition to doing right by the environment–the likelihood of getting a green light on budget, especially during a down economy, increases greatly.

To this end, factoring in monies gained from utility rebates, tax credits, and lower insurance premiums and underscoring the value of employee safety and an environmentally friendly corporate image is rapidly becoming the norm among IT leaders working hard to keep important projects on track for today’s environmentally sensitive, cost-conscious corporations.

Environmental concerns and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs these concerns engender, including varied green initiatives, are more than a passing trend. According to Gartner Research, by 2009 more than one third of IT organizations will include one or more environmental criteria in their decision process for purchasing IT-related goods; and by 2011 suppliers to large global enterprises will have to demonstrate green credentials to sustain preferred supplier status.

The ‘go’ or ‘no-go‘ decision for IT projects always adheres to a hard-nosed, ROI-driven process. But decisions are not made in a vacuum. They are framed and guided by prevailing conditions–today, the economy and the environment. Careful examination of the green implications of an important project reinforces the context of cost reduction and stokes the desire among today’s corporate leaders to do the right thing for both the company and the environment.

Stated bluntly, going green is the right thing to do, and a great way to win the green light for important projects.