How to make the sustainable profitable

Experts from Cloud4C and SAP talk about how to take that daunting first step into ESG monitoring. 

More organisations are seeing the importance of sustainability reporting. It is not only good for the environment, it's also good for transparency. 

"I think everybody's seeing the importance of ESG," said K Selveraja Sr. Director for the Center of Excellence for xP&A of SAP at the Operationalising Sustainability Reporting virtual roundtable hosted by Singapore Business Review and Cloud4C. 

But there's also a financial incentive to sustainability. 

"If the economic activities that a company is going to do are not sustainable activities, the loan interest may be high, and there will be a higher cost of investment for the company in the long run," Selveraja added, citing the increasing incentives financial institutions are placing for sustainable projects. 

But when is a good time to start? And how? 

Hoden Wan, Vice President and Head of SAP Practice – Asia Pacific Japan of Cloud4C, suggest starting now, and starting simple.

"I typically advise my clients to report their matrix, not to be too fancy. The data we collected manually, we upload and we showcase, because it's more cost-efficient," Wan said during the virtual roundtable. 

Even a simple spreadsheet can give a company a good idea of where they currently are in their ESG journey. Once that important first step is taken, companies may benefit from putting their data on a platform that is specially optimised to monitor and track their goals. 

"We are developing new capabilities to help customers right to capture the emissions data to capture, for example, incidents at the roadside, or in also multiple areas we are actually working together," Selvaraja said during the demonstration of SAP's capabilities. 

Selvaraja, who has over 26 years of experience in risk and compliance, and performance management solutions, dissuaded the notion that sustainability and profit are opposites. 

"Adopting new practices, or changing processes to reflect the reuse of your materials will eventually make a more profitable outcome. That's why we're saying that sustainability is profitable and profitability is sustainable," he said. 

And sustainability is here to stay, as it has been gaining traction for the past few years. 

"Sustainability is not a fad. This is something that will take over the whole world, for sure... Don't be dauntyed by the extent with which we need to do it. It's important that we start off with small steps now, because once you start doing it you'll get a hang of it," said Wan. 

Companies can breath a sigh of relief that platforms such as the ones provided by Cloud4C are there to help them make a profit while saving the world.