At first glance, the challenge ahead seems impossible, even laughable. Currently, infrastructure development can take years to complete the planning phase. Can industries, governments, and investors make the rapid shifts needed?
The increased adoption of circular economy and sustainable business practices shows how companies in numerous industries are already collaborating on digital platforms to make change happen faster.
Digital platforms build trusted partnerships.
One of the report's significant findings was that organizations need to create partnerships based on trusted communication and collaboration to meet net-zero climate goals. These new partnerships are critical to building a foundation for global scaling of standardized designs, changing community values, and broad adopting low carbon technology options.
The report also recommended a net-zero platform, connecting all available data sources, as essential to enable and monitor performance, providing feedback loops for continual improvement. Through sharing information, this digital platform further strengthens the trust and communications needed for solid partnerships.
Don't be selfish - generosity forges connections.
Sharing a vision of the connection economy during his 2013 SAP SAPPHIRE NOW keynote, marketing guru Seth Godin emphasized the importance of generosity in the new economy "because no one wants to connect to a selfish person." The same adage holds in business.
The industry is shifting to a so-called connection economy characterized by the value created through exchanging information, trust, and reciprocity, where interconnected systems foster meaningful connections between people and organizations.
Initially focused on developing consumer relationships and marketing, this mindset shift has extended to B2B relationships driven by a need for systemic approaches to sustainability. Improving sustainability within your value chain is no longer sufficient to meet sustainability goals. Companies are considering the extended business network to identify opportunities, as well as potential negative externalities.
Digital platforms, such as the recently announced SAP Business Network, can connect fragmented supply chains into a collaborative network for data sharing, scenario modeling across industries, and unified business processes such as logistics, asset intelligence, and supplier collaboration.
The business network unites the automotive value chain.
Across Europe, the automotive value chain is coming together through the Catena-X Automotive Network aimed at continuous data exchange within a secure platform for all network partners – from prominent corporate members such as BMW and BASF to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Catena-X aims to address industry-wide challenges, including supply chain resilience and sustainability, through standardized data and information flows. The network's guiding principles include collaboration between all members regardless of size and openness and access to the network based on the European cloud data infrastructure Gaia-X.
"To achieve sustainable and efficient processes in the automotive industry, data and information must be exchanged securely and reliably along the entire value chain," said Christian Klein, chief executive officer and member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. "This needs common standards. We are delighted to help build Catena-X as a pioneer and technology partner. The cloud-based data ecosystem is open to all companies in the European automotive industry and their global partners, users, and suppliers."
A sense of urgency is now needed to apply these learnings at scale to develop the sustainable energy infrastructure we need for a more secure future. Two solar power stations a week? Let's go.
Take the free online openSAP Course" Helping Business Thrive in a Circular Economy."
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