SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) recently announced that it has joined the World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership community, which is determined to create a cleaner ocean by 2030.
Reducing the amount of plastics entering the ocean requires cross-industry collaboration armed with data and intelligent technologies. To support this, SAP is planning to launch the next phase of its Plastics Cloud to allow businesses to shift rapidly to alternatives to single-use plastics, scale design for circularity, invest in materials collection infrastructure and ensure a better consumer experience.
“SAP is committed to a significantly cleaner ocean by 2030,” said Christian Klein, Co-CEO and Member of the Executive Board, SAP SE. “We want to achieve this objective together with customers, NGOs, governments and partners and will provide them with the tools, insights and solutions to eliminate waste and maximize resource productivity. Many of our customers have also made commitments to a cleaner planet. We will support them in achieving their ambitious goals, and together we can accelerate the move to a restorative and regenerative economy.”
Underscoring this, SAP has updated the Plastics Cloud to help companies produce products more responsibly by providing global insights to enable better understanding about what materials are used and their fates. This support will be based on local recycling infrastructures and policies in each city, region and country. It will allow them to calculate more accurately the environmental and business impact of using more recycled or reusable materials and packaging. SAP software systems also help companies adapt to changing regulations, such as extended producer responsibility policies, and stay current with local markets, global standards and best practices.
The new Plastics Cloud offering links to a secondary materials marketplace based on Ariba Network, which connects packaging and consumer products companies to new sources of recycled plastics and plastic alternatives. This will complement initiatives such as the UK digital waste map announced last year by waste-insights company Topolytics Limited.
Consumers, regulators, investors and employees are fueling the momentum for business to drive responsible growth. Experience management firm Qualtrics, an SAP company, conducted a large-scale global study with the World Economic Forum to understand better the experience citizens around the world are having with various issues on the Forum’s sustainability agenda, including the use of plastics. When asked what method they favor for reducing the harmful effects of plastics, nearly 50 percent of the 10,501 research participants said they prefer replacing plastics with other materials. On the other hand, while vast majorities called recycling very important, only 30 percent of participants said recycling was the best solution to the plastics crisis. Read about the study in “New Research: Understanding World Issues Through the Experiences of Those Who Are Living Them.”
Collaboration for a Cleaner Ocean
SAP is part of a growing movement of policymakers, NGOs, social groups and leading companies working together on solutions to create a restorative and regenerative economy. Global leaders from SAP, The Coca-Cola Company, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation and World Wildlife Fund discussed their vision for a plastics-free ocean earlier today at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
“I am delighted to welcome SAP to the Global Plastic Action Partnership community,” said Kristin Hughes, director of Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) and member of the World Economic Forum’s executive committee. “As a pioneer in the technology and innovation space, it is fantastic to see SAP channel its expertise and resources into solutions that will strengthen the global response to plastics pollution and drive progress towards a fairer and more sustainable world. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership.”
SAP recently joined The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Circular Economy 100 (CE100) Network, a collaboration of business, governments, universities and thought leaders working together to accelerate adoption of circular economy practices and processes that maximize the use of resources.
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