1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,740 Hi everyone, welcome to GreenMonkTV. My guest on the show today is Peter Graff. Peter Graff 2 00:00:10,740 --> 00:00:13,340 is SAP's newly appointed Chief Sustainability Officer. 3 00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:15,640 Peter, welcome to the show. 4 00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:17,480 Thank you. Glad to be here. 5 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:23,300 Peter, SAP came out with a big announcement last week around sustainability. Part of the 6 00:00:23,300 --> 00:00:27,860 announcement was the installing of yourself as the new position of Chief Sustainability 7 00:00:27,860 --> 00:00:34,760 Officer of SAP. Another announcement was around your targets to reduce carbon for SAP. And 8 00:00:34,760 --> 00:00:39,240 the third announcement, or the third part of the announcement, was around your enabling 9 00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:43,880 your customers to reduce their carbon footprint with the rollout of your environmental health 10 00:00:43,880 --> 00:00:50,500 and safety dashboard. Can you talk to us a little bit about the position of CSO? Why 11 00:00:50,500 --> 00:00:55,360 was that? Why do SAP feel there's a need for a CSO position? And a bit around the structure 12 00:00:55,360 --> 00:00:56,360 of the position. 13 00:00:56,360 --> 00:01:01,540 All right. Well, first of all, I'd like to start by making sure people understand why 14 00:01:01,540 --> 00:01:05,800 is that at all significant? Has SAP just discovered sustainability last week and now they're making 15 00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:10,240 an announcement about that? And everyone who's followed SAP in the past know that we don't 16 00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:14,420 start from scratch. We have some great visibility in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, for example, 17 00:01:14,420 --> 00:01:19,740 where we lead the software category. We also have products out. So this is not completely new. 18 00:01:19,740 --> 00:01:25,060 What's new from the announcement last week is that SAP made a strategic commitment towards sustainability 19 00:01:25,060 --> 00:01:31,000 and embedded it into the core of its business strategy. So it's got great support all the 20 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:36,260 way in the top of the organization with the CEO, but it's also part of our strategic business 21 00:01:36,260 --> 00:01:39,500 plan and it trickles down into all arms of the organization. 22 00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:47,340 Sure. And Leo, the CEO, talked about sustainability at the CBIT conference last week as well, didn't 23 00:01:47,340 --> 00:01:47,460 he? 24 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:54,200 That's correct, yes. And we think that, in a nutshell, IT has a lot to learn, but also we 25 00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:59,540 see a fantastic potential for IT to tackle some of the big issues that we're facing. And that 26 00:01:59,540 --> 00:02:07,740 goes beyond what commonly is referred to as green IT, which is when IT people do the right thing, 27 00:02:07,740 --> 00:02:13,320 which is clean their own house first and try to improve the energy efficiency of the data 28 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:19,060 center. What we believe is this is an important part and we're participating in this one, but 29 00:02:19,060 --> 00:02:24,860 also we're looking at the other 98% of, let's say, carbon emissions that are happening outside 30 00:02:24,860 --> 00:02:30,580 the data center and we can tackle that. So it's a strategic commitment to sustainability. 31 00:02:30,580 --> 00:02:38,160 My position in the business is to achieve two things. Number one, to drive internal targets, 32 00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:43,980 mostly around carbon, because we don't have a big production in terms of plants. We don't 33 00:02:43,980 --> 00:02:48,460 consume a lot of water or land or other natural resources. So carbon really is the one challenge 34 00:02:48,460 --> 00:02:55,960 for us that we can tackle. On the other hand, we want to drive new products to market that 35 00:02:55,960 --> 00:03:00,080 really helped businesses around the world address the issue. And I'd like to put the two a little 36 00:03:00,080 --> 00:03:06,100 bit into contrast. If you look at carbon, our footprint is about half a million tons of carbon 37 00:03:06,100 --> 00:03:12,720 a year. The combined footprint of all of our customers is 10,000 times bigger than that. It's 38 00:03:12,720 --> 00:03:18,420 five gigatons. And that is, we understand, yes, at SAP, we have to do the right thing ourselves 39 00:03:18,420 --> 00:03:23,240 and we need to walk the talk. But there's a tremendous opportunity for us to help large 40 00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:28,420 and small organizations around the world as we automate their business processes. And that's 41 00:03:28,420 --> 00:03:32,260 the duality of my job. And that's why I'm really excited about that. 42 00:03:32,260 --> 00:03:37,740 Okay. And your position as CSO, do you have budget? Do you have people answering to you? Is 43 00:03:37,740 --> 00:03:42,740 your job a job with teeth or is it, you know, a marketing exercise? 44 00:03:43,920 --> 00:03:51,780 I hope to believe it has teeth. The reason why is the way how we're setting it up. We had 45 00:03:51,780 --> 00:03:57,560 a couple of choices and we decided to set it up as a matrix. That means the developers that 46 00:03:57,560 --> 00:04:01,420 are working on sustainability solutions stay in development, the marketeers stay in marketing, 47 00:04:01,900 --> 00:04:06,800 the salespeople stay in sales and so forth. However, the leaders of all these groups have 48 00:04:06,800 --> 00:04:11,700 a dual reporting line into the function of the business as well as into me as the sustainability 49 00:04:11,700 --> 00:04:17,760 officer. We're driving the behavior through KPIs, through internal awareness campaigns and a lot 50 00:04:17,760 --> 00:04:24,300 of other things that are interesting to dive in. I do not think it's a job without teeth also 51 00:04:24,300 --> 00:04:32,160 because the awareness internally at SAP around these issues is huge. It's an issue that touches 52 00:04:32,160 --> 00:04:37,180 not only the minds of people but also the hearts. It's been very easy to recruit people into the 53 00:04:37,180 --> 00:04:41,800 effort. And that's also something that makes me very confident we're going to achieve our targets, 54 00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:46,720 both the ones internal as well as the ones where we're trying to help customers with new products. 55 00:04:47,300 --> 00:04:49,080 Super. Peter, thanks a million for coming on the show. 56 00:04:49,700 --> 00:04:50,140 Thank you.