Business software maker SAP  is looking to break out of business as usual to deliver better results to its shareholders, as well as to achieve some extended goals.  The company released its quarterly sustainability update  for the quarter ending September 30th, a period in which it used up a total of 112 kilotons–not including the Sybase subsidiary. This represents a two percent increase overall, but emissions per employee decreased by two percent, even though SAP’s workforce grew by three percent since the third quarter of 2010.

SAP announced this quarter it will become one of the first companies to support the Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard, which will assess the ecological impact of its entire value chain emissions impact.

The company’s green transparency and energy consumption initiatives (among several others designed to increase employee awareness and improve corporate responsibility) seem to have made a positive impact on not just the environment but also on the button line.

“Overall, the company’s focused sustainability initiatives led to a cost avoidance of approximately EUR 195 million between the start of 2008 and today, in comparison to a “business as usual” extrapolation. SAP remains on track to meet the year-end emissions target of 460 kilotons, in line with its long-term target to reduce GHG emissions to year-2000 levels by 2020.”

Reduction in power consumption is a big goal for companies maintaining IT infrastructures, both due to lowered costs and the rising carbon emissions coming from this sector.  Hewlett-Packard’s revolutionary Moonshot Project  is looking to capitalize on this demand by introducing a new type of high-density server that features hundreds or even more low-power processors – more computational power, less electricity.

SAP and HP, which both offer an angle on greener tech, have a strong relationship in the big data industry that produced several developments recently. That includes an agreement to deliver SAP BI apps via HP Enterprise Services.