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 http://www.sap.com/solution/lob/sustainability.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." We published the SAP Integrated Report 2016 – SAP’s fifth integrated report – in February 2017 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 2016, we achieved an all-time high employee engagement score of 85%, compared to 82% in 2015. For 2017 through 2020, we aim to reach an Employee Engagement Index between 84% and 86%. For more information, visit the SAP Integrated Report, Employees and Social Investment 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.

Our goal is to ensure that sustainability is embedded across our business, exemplified by our integrated report and integrated approach to measuring business performance. We have been successful in embedding sustainability professionals across our lines of business, e.g. in development, finance, communications, human resources, IT operations, or facility management. Luka Mucic, CFO of SAP, is the Sustainability sponsor on the SAP Executive Board. This ensures that there is a dedicated Board member overseeing this significant priority, which is a key to our path towards simplification. Daniel Schmid, Chief Sustainability Officer, and his team focus on driving sustainability into SAP’s operations. The sustainability team reports into the office of the CFO. Dieter Haesslein drives the innovation of SAP’s sustainability products as Chief Product Owner of the Sustainability and EHS product unit, part of our development organization.

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.