SAP, the business analytics solutions provider, said it will power all data centers and facilities globally with 100 percent renewable electricity starting in 2014.
The shift will help minimize the company’s carbon footprint as it moves to a cloud business model, and will help eliminate carbon emissions caused by its customers’ systems by moving them into a green cloud, the company said.
SAP also said the company’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 CO2per euro in 2013.
Also, absolute carbon emissions increased by 12 percent.
As customers increasingly leverage SAP software in the cloud, systems that previously ran at customers’ sites are increasingly running in SAP data centers and have become part of SAP’s total emissions.
SAP is committed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from operations to levels of the year 2000 by 2020.
The company has also launched other initiatives like subsidizing and encouraging electric vehicle adoption for German employees. The project began in 2014 with 60 electric vehicles.
In 2013, SAP built the first LEED-certified building in all of Brazil and achieved EMS ISO14001 certification for its Budapest, Palo Alto and Vancouver offices.
The company also launched TwoGo, a mobile app that encourages carpooling within public and private organizations, supports efforts to reduce the cost of fuel, parking and business trips and emissions, as well as enhance employee networks.
SAP invested EUR3 million in the Livelihoods Fund, which plants trees and conducts clean energy projects in underserved rural areas to both restore their ecosystems and offset carbon emissions globally.
“Committing to 100 percent renewable electricity in our data centers and facilities is a natural consequence of our business model shift into the cloud,” said Peter Graf, chief sustainability officer, SAP.