What SAP's AI Sustainability Whitepaper Says About Net Zero

The World Economic Forum forecasts thatAI could help cut global carbon emissions by an estimated three to 6 Gt of CO₂e annually by 2035.

Building on this vision, enterprise software leader SAP has released a new whitepaper, AI and Sustainability at SAP, detailing the company’s technological approach to sustainable innovation.

The report explores how SAP integrates AI across its platforms to help clients reduce environmental impact and drive operational efficiency – while also addressing how AI itself can be designed, deployed and scaled responsibly.

Delivering AI sustainably

SAP is sharpening its focus on the environmental footprint of AI, targeting energy-intensive workloads while building in safeguards for social and ethical risk.

SAP’s strategy is to boost the energy efficiency of its AI portfolio so that every model iteration drives down emissions and optimises costs across the digital value chain, from data centres through to enterprise applications.

All of SAP’s AI assets and AI-related processes that sit within its direct operational control are engineered and tuned for minimal energy consumption, reinforcing sustainability-by-design at the platform level.​

The whitepaper underlines that continuous monitoring, granular measurement and proactive management of AI-related emissions will be critical to locking in efficiency gains as infrastructure scales and compute costs fall.

On the governance side, SAP has introduced a Global AI Ethics Policy that sets out rules for how AI systems are developed, deployed, used and commercialised across its technology stack.​

This framework is intended to ensure that AI solutions are conceived with social and ethical sustainability built in from the outset, helping customers harness advanced automation and analytics without triggering unintended economic, political or societal harms.​

SAP is advancing responsible AI data supply chains by collaborating closely with partners and its broader external network to ensure that every model powering its enterprise platform is sourced, trained, and deployed with sustainability and ethics at the core.

Matthias Medert, Global Head of Sustainability at SAP, says: “AI is reshaping how the world works. But as its impact grows, so does our responsibility to ensure it scales sustainably.

“As AI becomes more powerful, it must evolve within planetary boundaries and be guided by strong ethical principles.

“Together, we are rethinking how AI is built, deployed and governed, balancing performance with efficiency and innovation with accountability.”

How can AI benefit businesses?

SAP Business AI automates the processing of internal and external data sources to transform insights into actionable strategies.​

The whitepaper details how this technology empowers executives across roles: CFOs and CSOs can generate sustainability reports in 80% less time through AI-driven automation of data aggregation, analysis and narrative creation.​

COOs, meanwhile, leverage AI optimisation algorithms for supply chain efficiency – delivering precise demand forecasts and enhanced demand sensing across production plants and warehouses to minimise waste and streamline operations.​

Dominik Asam, Chief Financial Officer at SAP, says: “The future of sustainability lies in connecting carbon and financial data in the Green Ledger – managing cash and carbon with the same rigor.

“With AI, we can raise data quality, automate compliance across hundreds of global regulations and identify the smartest investments for decarbonisation.

“This is how we move from reporting sustainability to steering it as real business value.”

How Microsoft is building sustainable AI

Microsoft is advancing its AI sustainability agenda through the launch of Community-First AI Infrastructure, a strategic framework for building, owning and operating data centres with community protection at its core.​

The initiative commits Microsoft to covering full electricity costs – including grid upgrades – while replenishing more water than its facilities consume, creating thousands of local jobs and funding AI skills training programmes to empower residents.​

Microsoft positions this large-scale infrastructure expansion as a catalyst for economic growth and quality-of-life improvements, aligning hyperscale AI deployment with environmental stewardship and community resilience in the era of generative workloads.

Melanie Nakagawa, Chief Sustainability Officer at Microsoft, says: “AI is changing the world faster than any other innovation in history.

“The speed of its adoption, the surge in its demand and the rapid evolution of its capabilities are unlike anything we’ve seen before.

“And like breakthrough technologies that have come before – including electricity, cars, aviation and the Internet – building the AI economy requires investments in new infrastructure.”