SAP Unifies Carbon and Financial Accounting with Green Ledger

Companies today estimate that 30-40% of their carbon emissions data is inaccurate, which affects their carbon footprint accounting, SAP research shows. Moreover, regulators are changing the playing field to accelerate decarbonization, and only companies that comply will succeed.

All these factors have made Scope 3 emissions accounting a business imperative. However, many organizations are severely limited in terms of data accuracy, accessibility and credibility as they still record this data in static spreadsheets. Additionally, environmental costs, which are often not considered while making business decisions, become apparent in the long term and hurt an organization’s financial optimization.

Now, SAP has announced the general availability (GA) of its carbon footprint accounting and analyzing solution, SAP Green Ledger, to help organizations reduce their dependency on manual data for their carbon accounting.

The solution, first unveiled during Sapphire 2023, allocates carbon emissions to specific economic activities and transactions in SAP ERP. As a result, it helps an organization analyze, account for, and report its carbon footprint across products, services, and organizational units in an auditable, transparent, and reliable manner.

“Only by moving from averages to actuals—audited at reasonable assurance—can freeriding and greenwashing be avoided, thereby protecting such valuable investment and our planet. SAP Green Ledger delivers Precisely that,” said Dominik Asam, CFO and member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, on December 16, 2024, when the solution became generally available.

SAP Green Ledger was developed with support from Accenture, Deloitte, EY, and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Covestro, which is one of its pilot customers, is evaluating the solution and testing the linking of carbon dioxide values to SAP Green Ledger as they are generated during the manufacture of specific products in the supply chain.

What it means for SAPinsiders

Apart from improving the data accuracy and quality of carbon accounting, SAP Green Ledger helps organizations steer global sustainability regulations like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), enforced on January 5, 2023. It can also adapt to evolving or future rules like the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) the International Sustainability Standard Board’s (ISSB) regulations.

For SAP users, Green Ledger:

• Tracks and accounts for carbon footprints relative to their financial impact
• Lowers emissions alongside financial optimization, facilitating carbon budgeting
• Establishes carbon planning for carbon neutrality and net zero goals
• Benchmarks departments, profit centers, and business units from a financial and environmental perspective
• Prepares the organization for sustainability audits

In 2025, SAP also plans GA of Green Ledger’s features to improve supplier-based processes to reduce carbon emissions in the supply chain.

The solution also complements SAP Sustainability Footprint Management and SAP Sustainability Data Exchange as the company looks to integrate capabilities across its portfolio to drive the reuse of data from all SAP sources and optimize the management of carbon footprint data.