Global professional services firm EY and leading enterprise application software company SAP announced an expanded alliance, with the companies collaborating on solutions and services aimed at enabling clients to advance climate and sustainability-related action and reporting.

The new collaboration comes as both organizations work to ramp their capabilities and solutions aimed at helping clients manage increasing sustainability and climate-related challenges. As part of a series recently announced sustainability goals by EY, the company pledged to invest in services and solutions that help its clients profitably decarbonize their businesses and address other sustainability challenges and opportunities. 

SAP introduced SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises in 2022, which bring together the company’s portfolio of solutions aimed at enabling businesses to holistically manage sustainability performance, and the company recently updated its SAP Sustainability Control Tower platform, enabling users to record and report on ESG data and set and monitor sustainability targets. Earlier this year, SAP launched its green ledger initiative, aimed at providing ledger-based accounting for carbon, enabling companies to track and manage emissions with actual and auditable data, and to communicate carbon data with supply chain partners.

Under the new collaboration, EY and SAP said that they will help enable clients to provide streamlined reporting and enhanced operational performance with aligned carbon footprint and financial data, and to navigate rapidly changing regulations and incentive opportunities.

Gunther Rothermel, Co-General Manager and Chief Product Officer for SAP Sustainability, said:

“Together, SAP and EY can achieve even greater market and planetary impact by working together on a joint sustainability ambition. Customers want the ability to track sustainability metrics the same way they do financial data, and we’re focused on helping them do that. Leveraging our already strong collaboration, we will help customers advance their sustainability journey by embedding sustainability data into business processes and decisions.”

According to the companies, as part of the collaboration, EY professionals are advising SAP and customers on the core design and blueprint of the next generation of software solutions to create more impactful climate, nature and social impact strategies.

The companies are also coordinating their software and services to support organizations with extended sustainability functionality, including providing EY solutions leveraging SAP Sustainability Control Tower to move from sustainability recording to reporting and action, report against multiple regulatory frameworks and embed sustainability metrics in internal performance management processes, and using SAP S/4HANA Cloud to help embed environmental considerations in business processes.

SAP and EY said that they will also work together on realizing SAP’s green ledger concept, including collaborating with select clients to further develop the requirements and analytics required to move emissions accounting from estimates to more accurate carbon footprinting. Additionally, EY said that it is providing real-time legal and regulatory updates on sustainability incentives, carbon regimes, environmental taxes and tax exemptions to support SAP’s Responsible Design and Production solution.

Steve Varley, EY Global Senior Advisor, says:

“Organizations need to shift from talking about pledges and promises to showcasing evidence of what they have achieved, actions taken and progress. Leveraging accurate and comparable sustainability data, at the same level as financial data, can help accomplish this.

“This expanded alliance will allow both EY and SAP to provide clients with services, capabilities and technology needed to create and protect value.”