Sustainability in manufacturing – SAP solutions and process guidelines

In recent years sustainability has become a top priority for all companies, regardless of industry, geography or size.

Defining a strategy and identifying proper SAP tool(s) to address the challenges is still not an easy task. Especially in manufacturing.

Deloitte aims to provide a quick aid to finding the right guidelines and a clear vision on how to proceed in the sustainability journey.

The context and the challenge

Sustainability in manufacturing is a challenge that cannot be postponed any longer and must be tackled with a structured approach. Some striking data from the past three years makes this clear. Manufacturing:

• was in 2020 the 3rd most waste-generating economic activity in Europe
• was in 2021 the economic activity that produced the most carbon emissions in Europe
• accounted for 20% of energy consumption in Switzerland in 2021
• was responsible for 50% of total water consumption in Europe, in 2022.

Are you aware of the likely impact of the sustainability question in your company? Do you have enough visibility on your operations to be compliant? What are you doing to improve the current situation? Which SAP solutions and processes are you adopting to address these challenges in manufacturing?

Approach and solution

Deloitte’s approach to achieving green manufacturing focuses on five dimensions of sustainability:

• Environment
• Energy and Water
• Raw Material & Inputs
• Waste Management
• Health & Safety Management.

Each dimension contains several challenges in the form of questions we must all deal with to improve our sustainability. An assessment can be carried out to verify your current level of sustainability across the five dimensions and identify your strengths and weak points.

For each dimension Deloitte’s approach provides guidelines and recommendations on the SAP solutions and process strategies you can adopt to overcome the challenge.

Do you know which capabilities SAP solutions can bring to your manufacturing environment and how they can improve your level of sustainability? Our approach is tailored to your specific needs to help improve your sustainability journey.

Benefits

By adopting Deloitte’s approach, you will be able to:

• Get a clear understanding of the challenges sustainability poses for manufacturing
• Evaluate your current level of sustainability across five dimensions
• Discover SAP solutions in one or more dimensions
• Find process guidelines and principles to be adopted to address the challenges
• Identify new ways to go green
• Provide a concrete contribution to improve sustainability.