The Journey to SAP Green Core
The clock is ticking not just for your S/4HANA migration, but for the planet. The two might not seem intrinsically linked, but the SAP space is the perfect arena to lower carbon emissions and create a foundation for a more sustainable business future.
2030. It may be six years away, but that’s practically six seconds if the maintenance deadline for ECC 6.0 was the Doomsday Clock. But, that isn’t the only 2030 deadline you need to consider.
Under the European Climate Law, the EU committed to reducing its Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by at least 55% by 2030. This means any organisation or business operating within the EU is committed to adopting this mindset. This is all outlined under The European Green Deal.
So what does this mean for your S/4HANA plans? Well, it’s far easier to plan for a significant reduction in GHGs and carbon emissions from the get-go than it is to rectify mistakes later down the line.
Similar to the way you’ll perform an As-Is audit of your systems before even planning a move to S/4HANA, you can do the same with your carbon emissions. Creating an As-Is of your current carbon state can help you to understand and plan for a far more sustainable future.
And it doesn't just benefit the environment, it benefits your bottom line too. S/4HANA is already an expensive task, but cost and efficiency can be improved by adopting a carbon reduction mindset.
Your S/4HANA migration is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to incorporate sustainability into your business case and As-Is reporting. You’re already going to be considering hosting & server locations, disaster recovery, and inefficiencies, and by being more mindful, carbon reduction can become part and parcel of the process.
It still surprises people that carbon emissions from cloud data centres are already higher than those of the entire global aviation industry, and that should the cloud be a country, it'd be the sixth largest carbon-emitting country on Earth.
While global concern and awareness about the impact of climate change on our future has grown massively in recent years, the Enterprise Resource Planning industry is yet to be seen as a focal point, despite awareness finally emerging regarding the ever-growing scale of our own personal digital carbon footprints.
Ironically, most organisations can feasibly reduce their digital carbon footprint by 30-50% simply by operating SAP more efficiently, adopting more sustainable design and development practices, and eradicating the huge amount of unnecessary digital waste.
While by no means an exhaustive list, here we detail three pragmatic steps to make SAP more sustainable that you can fold in to your S/4HANA migration approach.
Optimise SAP Code for Energy Efficiency
Does this sound familiar?
“We have 10 million lines of bespoke code and are only using 10% of it”
Energy-efficient software commences with clean, optimised code that consumes less CPU and memory to execute, which therefore means it consumes less power and emits less carbon.
Ensure the necessary controls and approvals are in place to guarantee that your SAP developers are only writing code that will actually be used. Introduce performance testing to your test strategy, as optimising code for speed will generally make it more energy efficient, almost by default.
By prioritising performance and writing only code that is guaranteed to be used, developers can play a major role in minimising the power consumption of your applications, culminating in considerable energy savings and diminished environmental impact.
Harness S/4HANA Cloud Potential
By optimising cloud infrastructure, we can minimise energy usage and carbon emissions, while also benefiting from a reduced cloud spend.
Techniques like right-sizing VMs (selecting the appropriate VM size for the current workload, rather than a perceived workload far in the future), snoozing non-production systems when not in use, and employing energy-efficient storage options can all contribute to more sustainable and cost-effective cloud infrastructure.
Furthermore, while cloud providers' claims of being "powered by 100% renewable energy" should be taken with a pinch of salt, they are increasingly investing in renewable energy sources to further reduce the environmental impact of cloud services.
The Right Location for your S/4HANA cloud data centre
Choosing the right location for your Cloud Hosting is just as important. Deploying S/4HANA servers in a region primarily powered by clean energy offers a double win for businesses. Firstly, significant cost savings - secondly, a reduced environmental footprint.
1. Cost Savings:
A study by McKinsey & Company found that companies deploying cloud-based applications in regions with a higher share of renewable energy could achieve cost savings of up to 10%, compared to those reliant on fossil fuels.
That's a substantial operational cost saving for your S/4HANA hosting over time. Exact savings of course depend entirely on energy mix, server workload, and pricing structure - but reduced energy bills are not something to be ignored.
Given the rising costs of fossil fuels, a 10% reduction can be a significant financial benefit.
2. Environment Benefits:
It's no secret that the cloud-computing sector is a major consumer of electricity, accounting for roughly 1% of the world's electricity supply, with data centres being the biggest contributing factor.
By choosing a cloud provider located in a region with a high percentage of clean energy sources like solar, wind, or hydro, companies can significantly reduce the carbon footprint associated with their S/4HANA operations.
A recent study by Lancaster University found that migrating IT operations to a region powered by 70% renewable energies could see a reduction of a company's carbon emissions by 88%.
Choosing a region powered by clean energy for your cloud services is a win-win, for both your bottom line and environmental responsibilities.
It not only leads to significant cost savings on energy bills, but a reduction in greenhouse gasses (GHGs), reflects a commitment to sustainability efforts and environmental concerns.
As the regulatory landscape adopts more environmental regulations, and carbon pricing initiatives become more prevalent globally, choosing a cleaner energy region can help companies proactively manage their environmental footprint and avoid costly taxation in the future.
Standardise and Consolidate your SAP Services
Operating multiple siloed ERP landscapes not only introduces additional complexity at a business level, it also increases cost and emissions at an infrastructure level.
Two activities stand out as a means to mitigate the risk of solution sprawl impacting sustainability:
1. Standardise:
Suppress variability across both cloud infrastructure and the SAP systems that run there. This will reduce your cost-to-serve and maximise the economies of scale that the cloud offers.
2. Consolidate:
Rein in system sprawl. Remove all known duplications from processes and technologies to consolidate services wherever possible. Consider measuring and baselining the ERP landscape’s ‘before’ and ‘after’ carbon footprints to promote the reduction in CO2 emissions that can be achieved through consolidation.
A standardised and consolidated ERP ecosystem that runs efficient code and harnesses the benefits of cloud computing will minimise the complexity, time, and effort required to develop and operate the SAP landscape.
Utilising these three simple steps can help you and your business reduce the cost and carbon footprint of running your SAP system in both the short and long term.
Want to know more about how Resulting IT can help you with your sustainability and SAP Net Zero goals from the outset? 
Download "Fifty shades of blue: the secrets to taking control of your S/4HANA journey" for everything you need to know about S/4HANA migration.
