We define sustainability as the creation of social, environmental, and economic value for long-term business success and responsible global development. In line with this definition, we aim to move from a separate sustainability strategy to a sustainable corporate strategy. This means we seek to embed sustainability in everything we do: our solutions, our operations, and our social investment.

SAP helps companies run more sustainably with innovations that increase profits, engage people and communities, and protect natural resources to have a positive economic, environmental, and social impact on the world, and touch the lives of billions of people. Solutions from SAP help the world run better and more sustainably. SAP is helping its customers achieve more sustainable operations through a range of solutions that address energy, environmental, health, and safety needs.

Specifically, SAP enables large and small enterprises to increase long-term and short-term profitability by holistically managing the opportunities and risks associated with economic, environmental, and societal concerns.

For more information, visit https://www.sap.com/products/performance-management.html

The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC, http://www.theiirc.org/) defines integrated reporting as "a process that results in communication, most visibly a periodic‚ integrated report, about value creation over time. An integrated report is a concise communication about how an organization’s strategy, governance, performance and prospects lead to the creation of value over the short, medium and long term." SAP published its first Integrated Report in 2013 (for the 2012 year). The current SAP Integrated Report may be found at www.sapintegratedreport.com

SAP aims to achieve a net-zero carbon footprint for SAP’s operations by 2025. This includes all direct (scope 1), indirect (scope 2), and selected categories of value chain (scope 3) greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) such as business flights, employee commuting, and co-locations of data centers. SAP will continue existing initiatives and programs to drive efficiency and innovation to avoid and reduce GHG emissions, following our approach “avoid – reduce – compensate.”

1. Avoid: Whenever possible, SAP aims to avoid the creation of GHG. This is our priority (e.g., usage of virtual telecommunication instead of business flights).
2. Reduce: If we cannot avoid GHG emissions, we aim to drive efficiency and reduce GHG emissions for all type of emissions (e.g., carpooling and car sharing, e-mobility).
3. Compensate: Compensation / offsetting is only the last option. We extend our existing proven compensation models by enlarging our embedded internal carbon pricing model for CO₂-free travel by train and airplane. Another example is the implementation of carbon neutral fuel cards for company cars. 

We define employee engagement as a score for the level of employee commitment, pride, and loyalty, as well as our employees’ feeling of being an advocate of SAP. It is calculated based on the results of regular employee surveys. Employee engagement remains one of SAP’s four corporate strategic goals, along with growth, profitability, and customer loyalty. In 2017, we again achieved an employee egagement score of 85%. For 2020, we aim to reach an Employee Engagement Index between 84% and 86%. For more information, visit the SAP Integrated Report, Social Highlights section.

Our compliance management system details our policies and procedures for ensuring ethical business conduct. Our policies govern the conduct of our management, employees, suppliers and partners, as well as critical areas of our business such as sales, vendor selection, and payroll. In addition, we train employees on the SAP Code of Business Conduct for Employees, which includes guidelines on bribery, antitrust, and a host of other topics. In the case of any breaches of compliance, we take appropriate remedial action. You can find more information in the SAP Integrated Report, Business Conduct section.

At SAP, we believe that it is not enough to simply have a sustainability strategy but that, instead, our overall corporate strategy must itself be sustainable. Only by achieving this can we fulfill our vision to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. We therefore strive to promote sustainability across our entire business. Led by our chief sustainability officer, a dedicated team works to embed sustainability into our corporate strategy and promotes new sustainability initiatives across the organization. Our chief financial officer (CFO) is the sponsor for sustainability on the Executive Board, and we also have a dedicated person in charge of sustainability in each area of the business. These individuals are responsible for embedding sustainability in their business practices, for example, by setting relevant targets and implementing related programs. They are held accountable for their achievements in review meetings with the CFO and the chief sustainability officer that take place twice a year.

Security has always been a very important topic for SAP and our customers. That is why we introduced a secure software development lifecycle to address security holistically throughout the development process.

Our security standards meet high standards and have been certified in many areas, including data center operations, software operations, business continuity, and internal inspection. Certifications include SOC1 Type II, SOC2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 22301, and BS 10012, among others.