KUALA LUMPUR: Sustainability is high on SAP Malaysia Sdn Bhd's plan in line with the key theme within the 12th Malaysian Plan (12MP).
Managing director Hong Kok Cheong said social, environmental, and economic activities and performance are interrelated, with each aspect impacting the others.
"Our efforts focus on helping to create a sustainable future for Malaysia, our customers, and society at large," said Hong in a statement.
"For us, it is crucial to be a responsible business that holistically manages our performance and steers our business in an integrated way – connecting financial and non-financial performance," he said.
Under the 12MP, the goal is for Malaysia to become carbon-neutral as early as 2050, with carbon pricing and a carbon tax to be introduced.
Last November, SAP Malaysia announced the availability of SAP Responsible Design and Production, a solution for designing products sustainably before transitioning to circular-economy business practices.
The solution helps companies better visualise material flows through their processes, including tracking and complying with rapidly changing regulations, especially those concerning product packaging and plastics.
"The circular economy is based on three principles, driven by design — eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials, and regenerate nature," said Hong.
"Digital solutions enable businesses to embed circular practices across their operations, from designing products to help reduce waste from the outset to tracking the lifecycle of the materials they use."
The SAP Product Footprint Management solution is part of a new portfolio of sustainability-specific business applications that deliver transparency and measurement capability across the supply chain, allowing companies to move toward lower carbon emissions and more sustainable operations.
By integrating data across solutions that govern production processes with master data from business applications such as SAP S/4HANA, this solution can calculate the environmental impact of various production scenarios.
"SAP's data-driven approach lets businesses embed sustainability comprehensively to gain actionable insights across the value chain to enable companies to transition to low-carbon business processes," said Hong.
"We enable businesses to proactively identify the carbon impact at the beginning of the product lifecycle instead of reactively after a product has been produced," he added.