Two SAP.iO Ventures Helping SAP Achieve its Sustainability Goals

As a company that prides itself on making its customers and the world run at its best, sustainability is a topic that is near and dear to the heart of SAP. Over the past five years, SAP has dedicated itself to supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals aimed at ending poverty, protecting the planet, fighting diseases, and ensuring equitable prosperity by 2030.

But SAP’s efforts in this space go beyond its existing operational activities and the ways its software is used by customers. The company is also investing in innovative teams through its SAP.iO Venture Studio, which aims to future-proof SAP and its customers through new, groundbreaking technologies — including within the sustainability space.

Here are two employee-led SAP.iO venture teams that have put sustainability at the forefront of their solutions.

GreenToken by SAP — tracking raw materials back to source of origin

GreenToken by SAP was sourced from the SAP One Billion Lives initiative, the company’s flagship social intrapreneurship program that aims to improve 1 billion lives through a portfolio of sustainable, shared-value impact ventures.

As consumers become more conscious of the origin of the products they buy, they are demanding sustainable and ethically sourced material. Consumer trends suggest that concerned shoppers are switching to brands that have environmentally sustainable practices and values. This shift in consumer behavior is also reflected in sales: sustainable consumer packaged goods grew 5.6x faster compared to not sustainable ones. GreenToken offers companies new levels of transparency through reliable, blockchain-based information. With GreenToken, customers can gain visibility into where raw materials came from and produce products with knowledge about where and how the materials were produced, even in complex, non-batch supply chains.

“This year, we plan to release the production-ready version of GreenToken and run it at scale, we intend to expand into new industries across many different raw material supply chains,” said co-founders James Veale and Nitin Jain, adding that their team also aims to develop new features that will give customers insights into their raw material supply chains. “We want to enable them to make meaningful procurement decisions and help drive sustainable and circular economies.”

EverLoop by SAP — battling e-waste management

Founded by Kiruthika S., Ajit Chandran, Rima Yadav, and Amit Sharma, EverLoop by SAP aims to address e-waste in India through connecting and collaborating on ways to tackle the e-waste produced by building a platform for corporates, retailers, manufacturers and e-waste recyclers.

“By building a platform and creating a marketplace, EverLoop isn’t just reducing e-waste,” Kiruthika, Head of Product of EverLoop said. “It will also increase the value derived from e-waste for companies and also aim at improving circular economy by bringing secondary raw materials back into the market.”

Not only is EverLoop hoping to change the ways companies in India view and handle e-waste, it also aims to transform Indian society into a more sustainably driven one by pairing manufacturers with recyclers. This collaboration will help reduce the amount of e-waste generated and dumped in landfills by reusing, repairing existing electronics wherever possible and by responsibly recycling of e-waste.

The EverLoop team is not just setting its sights on improving the health of the environment with the solution; they’re working to improve the health and safety of people too.

“There are severe health concerns when it comes to improper e-waste recycling,” said Ajit Chandran, General Manager and Head of Business of EverLoop, adding that serious illnesses can arise from the hazardous materials of e-waste. “EverLoop will help prevent these illnesses and help take e-waste to a better place.”

GreenToken and EverLoop both participated in the SAP Sustainability Summit, April 28–29, 2021, and talked about the growth of recommerce and material return loops. You can watch their sessions here after signing in:

• “Growth of Recommerce to Better Manage our Waste” incl. EverLoop by SAP
• “Material Return Loops — Accelerating Sustainability Outcomes” incl. GreenToken by SAP

About SAP.iO Venture Studio

The SAP.iO Venture Studio drives a new era of organic growth at SAP. It invests in new ventures founded by small, entrepreneurial teams inside of SAP who are focused on building the future of enterprise business processes. SAP.iO Venture Studio provides design, development, and sales support to help these ventures launch.

To learn more about SAP.iO, visit www.sap.io/studio