SiliconBeat

SAP, the German software maker with a large Silicon Valley presence, today announced its first cross-functional sustainability team and said that Peter Graf will lead the effort out of its Palo Alto office.

In a press release, the company said it would reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions down to year 2000 levels by 2020. Using 2007 as a baseline, this would represent a reduction in emissions of 51 percent. This would mean a reduction of 513,000t CO2 to 250,000t CO2. The company said it would use its own software to monitor and manage its sustainability effort, and that its reductions would comprise not only its direct emissions but also indirect emissions such as business travel.

“We have a moral obligation to start with ourselves and ensure that our business operates in a transparent and accountable manner, leaves a minimal environmental footprint and reaches out to improve the social situation of others,” said Leo Apotheker, SAP’s co-CEO.

Graf, a 13-year SAP veteran, will become the company’s first chief sustainability office (CS0), reporting to Jim Hagemann Snabe, an executive board member. Apotheker will speak Tuesday at CeBIT, an industry trade show, about SAP’s sustainability goals.