Issue

At the group level, Syensqo  is required to collect and consolidate a broad set of environmental indicators from its industrial sites. This is necessary not only to meet external reporting requirements—such as those defined under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) —but also to monitor progress against internal sustainability targets and ambitions set by corporate, as well as answer institutional questionnaires such as Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

This data collection is currently conducted through an annual campaign using the PURE platform, in which sites are asked to complete the Syensqo Environmental Reporting File (SERF - 7 forms in 2024). The data consolidation is then performed in PURE. Data is audited and can then be subsequently used for the annual report process or other questionnaires answering.

Since sites data will originate from SAP EHS EM and should eventually be disclosed in SAP SCT, the goal of this KDD is to evaluate if the process could be conducted fully in SAP, including the corporate consolidation, or if PURE is still needed in the target landscape.

Background & Context

Syensqo  operates in a regulatory environment where environmental data must be collected, validated, reported, audited both at the corporate level and at the individual site level. 

On an annual basis, each site within the defined reporting scope is required to submit a comprehensive set of environmental indicators to the corporate Industrial  team. These indicators include:

• Emissions to air and water
  
• Water balance (intake, use, discharge, losses, circularity)
  
• Waste shipment and treatment
  
• General information (Environmental fines, climate change related information, additional information on water for CDP, summed production volumes....)
  
  

To standardize this process, the corporate team has developed the Syensqo Environmental Reporting File (SERF), which are implemented through the PURE application (UL 360 platform). The SERF covers more than 1000 KPIs and is structured to support corporate-level reporting requirements under frameworks such as CSRD, as well as internal environmental performance monitoring.

Site representatives are prompted annually to fill out the SERF questionnaires within PURE, after which the corporate team validates, consolidates, and extracts the data for use in the group’s sustainability disclosures.

Group reporting is done on operational and financial perimeter depending on the requirement. The calculation perimeter may be modified based on the properties of the reporting entities (start- and stop-date during their lifetime) and the exact inquiry (e.g. historical perimeter is with inactive sites included, running perimeter is without the past contribution for the past sites). It therefore allows executing ad hoc analysis of past data, for example in the event of a carve-out or spin-off.

 Constraints

• System and data should be auditable. Users should be able to add the comment if there is any change in value when data is validated
• The system should keep all historical values for the same indicator / reporting entity and period combination; together with the reasons for the corrections, the name of the person who asked for the correction, the date, etc
• Auditors may impose to make some changes in the reporting process at site or group level to better cater for CSRD requirements
• Need to maintain complex formulas (If and Else) and the full flexibility for the SERF Manager to modify calculation equations and consolidation settings
• Need to be able to update data collection forms every year to cater for reporting frameworks updates
• Need to have flexible reporting to cater for ad-hoc requests and cover both operational and financial reporting parameters
• Need to be able to use time-variable calculation constants and time-variable consolidation rates, the latter is needed for the computation of the financial perimeter

Impacts

• Potential for reduced manual work
  
• Risk of data inconsistency if systems are not well integrated
• Increased IT and business (site and corporate) workload during the transition phase
• Need for training and change management at site and corporate level

  Business Rules

• Indicators must be traceable to source data and auditable
  
• Any system must support future expansion of KPI scope or manual update of definition or calculation rule with traceability.

• Site Input data is made available in SAP EHS EM, either through manual input or leveraging models
• SAP version will be S/4 HANA 2025 Private Cloud

Options considered

Option A: Move end to end process to SAP EHS Environment

• Single, Integrated Solution: SAP EHS Environment becomes the sole platform to manage group waste, emissions and water reporting.

• Corporate Reporting Fully in SAP: Leverage SAP EHS Environment together with Footprint Management and Sustainability Control Tower for end-to-end data capture, consolidation and reporting.

• Pros:

  • Both site level and corporate level data would be present in single system. Easy traceability and auditability 
  • Effort required for integration with other SAP component is limited
  • More cost efficient as less licensing and maintenance cost is required
  • Opportunity to merge the “water live dashboard” and the SERF report for sites in scope: the quarterly data will be used for the annual reporting

• Cons :

  • Limitation in equation parameter, lengthy equations need to be broken down to smaller ones. This would result in more effort during initial setup.

  • More change impact for the PURE Admin

Our recommendation: Option A is the most future-proof approach and more streamlined design.

Option B: Keep PURE + create some integration with SAP

In this architecture, all industrial sites use SAP EHS EM as the standardized platform for site-level environmental data capture and compliance reporting. The corporate environmental reporting platform PURE (based on UL 360) remains in place for annual group-level consolidation and reporting, including CSRD compliance. Data from SAP EHS is exported and integrated into PURE for the Syensqo Environmental Reporting Form (SERF) campaign.

• Sites operate in SAP EHS, entering  data on:

  • Emissions to air and water

  • Waste  transportation and disposal

  • Water intakes, uses ,releases ,losses and reuse

• Data is validated locally using SAP EHS validation rules and audit trails.

• On a yearly (Frequency could be varied based on requirement) basis, the data required for SERF is extracted from SAP EHS, transformed as needed, and uploaded or integrated into PURE, where corporate teams run:

  • Campaign monitoring

  • Plausibility checks

  • Final calculations and KPI aggregations

  • External reporting formats

• PURE can still be used for questions not covered in SAP EHS EM

• Results are extracted from PURE and sent SAP Sustainability Control Tower via Datasphere. 

• Pros:

  • Ability to handle complex computation better in 1 formula
  • Null value input can be used in logical equations
  • Perimeters can be managed more directly in PURE

• Cons :

  • Fragmented data as site level and corporate level data would reside in 2 different systems
  • Integration needs to established between SAP EHS EM to PURE and from PURE to SAP Datasphere. 
  • Additional licensing cost for PURE and maintenance needed for integration with SAP
  • Very limited user basis and functional scope for PURE

Evaluation

	Option A : Move full scope to SAP EHS Environment	Option B : SAP EHS at Site + PURE at Corporate
System Integration	Pro: Fully embedded in SAP ecosystem (EHS + SFM + SCT). Native API integration (minimal customization) for SAP EHS - SAP Datasphere - SAP Sustainability Control Tower  Possibility to leverage organizational structure from plant maintenance to avoid redundant updates HR data from SAP ERP can be leveraged for assigning activities and approvals tasks to relevant stakeholders	Con : Integration flows needed between SAP EHS EM and PURE and then from PURE to SAP SCT and SAP SFM. can be done manually (extra workload) or automated but for a fee (first estimate 15k€ for yearly API charges from UL)
Compliance and Performance management	Pro: versatility of SAP EHS EM can be used to address local regulatory monitoring and reporting activities (eg environmental permit management) as well as the corporate reporting ("killing 2 birds with 1 stone") Pro: opportunity to increase the frequency of KPI generation as well as reducing the effort at year end to report the data	2 different source of truth for site level and corporate level compliance and performance management. 2 systems to be audited Process controls to be implemented (possibly duplicated) in 2 systems
Computation Flexibility	Con : Complex computation is possible but one formula is limited to 5 parameters. This means complex and lengthy formulas need to be broken down to smaller formulae.   Con : SAP EHS calculation engine does not include NULL values in calculation. It is possible to calculate with input as 0, while keeping the traceability	Pro: PURE has possibility to handle the most Complex KPI computation, controlled by the admin user. No restrictions in using lengthy equations. No restrictions in using NULL value as input
Standard Auditability & Traceability of Data	Pro: improved traceability since everything is 1 system. No risk of data corruption during integration or mapping	Con: Do not provide end to end traceability due to fragmented landscape, and it will require governance between two systems
Change Management Impact	Con : more change for the PURE Admin user Pro:  Sites will use SAP EHS EM as well: allowing mutual training and understanding	Pro:  PURE processes stay unchanged at corporate level

See also

Change log