ATTAINING a circular economy–one that is design-driven, waste-conscious, and recycles products and materials to sustain and regenerate nature–can be hastened with a technological solution that can monitor and enable these factors in an ordered fashion.
SAP SE announced recently the availability of SAP Responsible Design and Production, a solution for designing products sustainably and transitioning to a circular economy. This is the latest offering in a growing portfolio of sustainability-specific software applications that help businesses increase their measurement and data management capabilities.
The new solution helps companies gain better visibility of material flows through their processes including tracking and complying with rapidly changing regulations, especially those concerning product packaging and plastics. As businesses increasingly develop sustainable products, managing materials and regulatory data is becoming one of the most complex challenges across the consumer industry today.
“The circular economy is based on three principles, driven by design – eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials, and regenerate nature. Digital solutions play an important role in the transition to a circular economy. They enable businesses to embed circular practices across their operations, from designing products to reduce waste from the outset to tracking the lifecycle of the materials they use,” Andrew Morlet, CEO, Ellen MacArthur Foundation confirmed.
With SAP’s new solution, businesses can embed circularity principles into core business processes, helping eliminate waste and unlock new value by designing products to be sustainable from inception.
“Every year, we use almost twice the amount of resources than the planet can regenerate,” said Scott Russell, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and head of Customer Success SAP Business Technology Platform, provides tailored intelligence that enables businesses to keep pace with EPR regulations and plastic taxes, embed circularity principles into core business processes and optimize design for sustainable business.
“Business can play a crucial role in keeping value in our systems for longer through smart, responsible product design that reuses resources rather than disposing of them. There is inherent complexity in designing products that eliminate waste and use responsible materials, but SAP Responsible Design and Production tackles that complexity and offers a ‘gold-standard’ solution to our customers, helping to deliver circular products and achieve a regenerative economy,” Russel concluded.
