16th August 2010: SAP AG’s Scott Bolick, VP for sustainability, says SAP is using Telepresence meetings to reduce air travel which accounts for 25-30 per cent of SAP's total carbon emissions which SAP aims to cut 50% by 2020   

16 August 2010. SAP vice president for sustainability Scott Bolick, when visiting Australia recently for the second meeting of SAP ANZ’s Sustainability Executive Advisory Council, said reducing company air travel needs is a crucial part of SAP’s plan to keep emissions below 460 kilotonnes in 2010.   

SAP’s objective of staying below 460 kilotonnes of emissions in 2010 is part of an aggressive commitment to reduce total carbon emissions to 275 kilotonnes per year by 2020 from 540 kilotonnes per year pre-2007. Scott Bolick acknowledges that SAP’s target of 275 kilotonnes - the level in the year 2000 - is ambitious, but says that it will ultimately deliver bottom line benefits.

Our target is ambitious but we also believe that it’s going to give us incredible insight in terms of our operations and in terms of how we can help our customers,” said Bolick. “It’s also going to give us tremendous bottom line improvements. We are marching down that path and will present our five year plan to our Executive Sustainability Council at the end of November.”

Scott Bolick told his SAP colleagues that: “This year (2010) we made investments in Telepresence systems to reduce travel. We’re really trying to encourage people to leverage remote technology rather than getting on a plane. We’ll make other investments as well as we go forward, but the Telepresence system really is helping us with that 25 to 30 per cent of our carbon that’s related to flights.”   

SAP AG standardised on the Cisco TelePresence system for high-end virtual meetings to foster internal collaboration globally as early as April 2007. Initially, Cisco TelePresence rooms were set up in SAP offices in Walldorf, Germany,  Palo Alto, California, and Newtown Square, Pennsylvania in June 2007.

"By implementing the Cisco TelePresence system, we will take collaboration to the next level by overcoming geographical barriers and enabling employees, customers and partners to work together more effectively," said Uwe Herold, CIO, SAP AG at that time. "We anticipate that TelePresence will substantially enhance SAP's operational efficiency, particularly in the areas of new product development, and customer engagement."

The SAP AG Sustainability report for Q2 2010 said:

“As we look to decrease emissions, limiting employee air travel is currently a top priority for SAP as this heavily contributes to our footprint. Air travel figures are currently higher compared with last year — which can be explained by the need to support renewed business demands following economic challenges in 2009.”

“While travel to support our customers is a priority for the organization, we are working to provide our employees greater insight into the situation and encourage travel alternatives such as virtual meetings.”

“As part of this effort we plan to invest further in Telepresence systems throughout our offices to support communications with customers, partners, employees and stakeholders.”

* * *