Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on January 31, 2025
(Reuters) - Germany's SAP sees a growing global demand for software to manage and document companies' sustainability efforts despite a trend of weakening climate protection targets in the United States, its chief financial officer, Dominik Asam, said in an interview with Reuters.
This week, the United Nations said the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement on Jan. 27, 2026, after Washington formally notified Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of President Donald Trump's decision to quit.
"The topic of sustainability will not disappear from investors' discussions," Asam said, adding that he expects companies to still need reliable figures and analysis tools to make decisions on the topic.
"I spoke to many investors at the World Economic Forum in Davos who are concerned with sustainability. They are very optimistic despite the recent U.S. elections," he adds.
In this context, he sees potential for SAP's fledgling Green Ledger software that he said helps companies make their sustainability reporting as verifiable as a financial balance sheet, which will be required from 2028 in the framework of the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
Apart from chemical firm Covestro, it's mainly SAP using the software, but the CFO expects contracts to be signed. "A lot will happen in the second half of this year," he said.
(Reporting by Hakan Ersen, writing by Paolo Laudani, editing by Miranda Murray)
