Sustaining momentum: Daniel Schmid, SAP
SAP is a global trailblazer in sustainability. The German software giant’s Daniel Schmid reveals how other business leaders can follow suit.

Daniel Schmid, chief sustainability officer, SAP.
“Put yourself in my shoes,” says Daniel Schmid. “It couldn’t be better.”
The chief sustainability officer at German software giant SAP, Schmid is referring to the company’s vision: help the world run better and improve people’s lives. “It’s such a strong statement,” he says. “I don’t need to use the term sustainability.”
Schmid is celebrating the fact that at SAP, sustainability is so deeply ingrained in the company’s mission that mention of the word is almost redundant: it is by definition what SAP does.
This is the position Schmid wishes all companies were in: that sustainability was so normalised as part of business practice it was no longer a discussion. However, that is not the status quo in the world