{"success":true,"data":{"pressRelease":{"id":"157094","rtpr_id":"nACSh2SPQa-20260930","ticker":"SAPG","exchange":"XETRA","all_tickers":["SAPG"],"title":"The Sustainability Pendulum Won't Land Where It Started","author":"ACCESSWIRE","published_at":"2026-09-30T15:55:00.813Z","article_body":"NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire (https://www.accessnewswire.com/) /\nSeptember 30, 2026 / Previously published by the World Economic Forum\n(https://pr.report/qx97)\n\nSophia Mendelsohn (https://pr.report/qx98), Chief Sustainability and\nCommercial Officer, SAP\n* While the once-popular environmental, social and governance metrics of 2021\nhave gone out of favour and been deprioritised, sustainability is set to gain\nvigour with the rise of AI.\n* Sustainability will be repositioned as a lever of competitiveness, with\ninvestment in renewable energy sources and an expanded calculation of climate\nrisk exposure that includes physical assets as well as emissions.\n* AI can assess the credibility of sustainability reporting with greater\naccuracy through better-performing models and expanded assessment\ncapabilities.\nThe enthusiasm for environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics that\nflowed through capital markets in 2021 has faded.\n\nWhat pushed it out of favour and, for some, down the list of strategic\npriorities, is familiar by now: political resistance, regulatory uncertainty,\ngreenwashing crackdowns and geopolitical conflicts. What's pulling it back is\nnewer - artificial intelligence (AI).\n\nNow, sustainability's standing is a pendulum: a combination of forces swung it\nout into unpopular territory but it is about to swing back. However, pendulums\nnever swing back to exactly where they were originally.\n\nI have argued before that AI needs sustainability more than sustainability\nneeds AI (https://pr.report/qx99). That's because a technology built on land,\nwater, and power is only permitted to scale where it is trusted and that trust\nrests on the discipline sustainability leaders have spent two decades\nbuilding.\n\nThe pendulum's return is that dependence is becoming visible on three fronts:\ncompetitiveness, risk exposure, and energy security.\n\nWhat sustainability looks like in the age of AI\n\nHere are the three places I expect the pendulum to settle.\n\n1. Competitiveness is the new net zero\n\nEnergy has become the input cost of intelligence. Access to cheap, clean,\nconsistent power now shapes who wins the AI race and when grid capacity\nbottlenecks the decade's biggest growth story, renewable energy requires no\nmoral argument.\n\nThe International Energy Agency projects that electricity demand from data\ncentres (https://pr.report/qx9a) will roughly double to around 945\nterawatt-hours (TWh) by 2030 (slightly more than Japan's entire consumption\ntoday), with AI as the most important driver (https://pr.report/qx9b) of that\ngrowth.\n\nThe infrastructure buildout behind those numbers is enormous; big-tech AI\ninfrastructure spending (https://pr.report/qx9c) is approaching the scale of\nglobal upstream oil-and-gas investment. Securing energy has moved from a\nnet-zero objective to a matter of industrial strategy.\n\nInvestors increasingly describe the energy transition in the language of\nsecurity, resilience, independence and competitiveness rather than carbon\nreduction. On the demand side, the same AI that strains the grid can optimize\nenergy, materials and logistics in ways that feed directly into margin.\n\nScaled responsibly, AI is a source of competitiveness and resilience rather\nthan a system stressor.\n\n2. Reporting will reward trajectory, not snapshots\n\nCurrent mandatory reporting remains material for the largest companies, even\nas the European Union has delayed and narrowed (https://pr.report/qx9d) parts\nof its reporting and due-diligence regime.\n\nHowever, its growing complexity will matter less than the compliance industry\nfears because AI is making disclosure cheap and routine. Once that happens,\ndisclosure is no longer a barrier to smaller companies. A report any company\ncan generate is a report no company can win with. Attention needs to shift\nfrom what your emissions are to where your capital is going.\n\nThe debate about transition portfolios has moved from excluding high emitters\nto asking whether a company is deploying serious capital into decarbonization,\neven while its current emissions remain high.\n\nInvestors are judging transitioners on trajectory and not just their current\ncarbon intensity.\n\nInvestment theses for companies such as German energy firm RWE\n(https://pr.report/qx9e), which allocated most of its 2024 cash CapEx (capital\nexpenditure) to offshore wind and onshore wind and solar, or Porsche\n(https://pr.report/qx9f), whose battery-electric vehicle share reached 22.2%\nin 2025, are increasingly tied to portfolio transformation rather than the\nlegacy on the books.\n\nTrajectory claims, though, invite a question which snapshots never faced: how\ndo we know you'll actually do it? This is where AI cuts both ways. The same\ntools that write the reports can check them against CapEx plans, supply chain\ndata and even satellite imagery.\n\nOne recent study (https://pr.report/qx9g) ran large language models across\nsatellite images and the environmental claims of 214 European companies. Only\n26% of the claims could be positively confirmed; 7.5% were flatly contradicted\nby what the satellites showed; the rest sat in a grey zone the models could\nnot yet resolve.\n\nThe bar is therefore moving from disclosure to verifiable reduction, tied to\nyour business model. As autonomous systems begin to act rather than advise,\nemissions adjustments and supplier decisions will need to be recorded and\ntraceable in the financial ledger like any other transaction.\n\n3. Physical climate risk will finally be priced\n\nAI keeps lifting the ceiling on what climate models can compute and better\nmodels mean insurers, lenders and investors can quantify physical climate risk\nat the level of individual assets.\n\nUnderwriters are already using forward-looking climate outputs to\ndifferentiate between locations and assets that once looked identical on\npaper. My expectation is straightforward: physical climate risk will soon\nreceive the analytical attention that carbon emissions receive now: priced and\nmoved onto the balance sheet.\n\nThe irony is that the industry building the risk models is also their most\nmotivated customer. AI infrastructure is a rapidly growing pool of physically\nexposed capital. A data centre is not a metaphor; it is a very large building\nthat runs hot, drinks water and pulls power, often in places already under\nclimate stress.\n\nIndustry analysis suggests that climate-related insurance costs for data\ncentres could triple or quadruple by 2050 (https://pr.report/qx9h) without\ndecisive mitigation and adaptation. This means the data foundation behind a\ncompany's climate-risk decisions is becoming one of its more valuable assets.\n\nHow to prepare for the return swing of sustainability\n\nThe pendulum will come to rest wherever claims can be verified. Companies\nwhose sustainability data can survive an auditor, an insurer and an AI reading\nsatellite imagery will find the swing at their backs. Everyone else will be\nexplaining themselves to the machines that performed the checks.\n\nThe corporate world has spent the past few years speaking less loudly about\nsustainability. That period is ending because AI has reattached sustainability\nto the things companies cannot ignore: energy costs, insurable risk and the\ncredibility of their own claims.\n\nThe transition opportunity now runs well beyond pure-play renewables into\ngrids, electrification equipment, industrial transformation and adaptation.\nCompanies still treating sustainability as a narrow compliance exercise will\nmiss the industrial realignment underway.\n\nPreparing for the swing means more than getting your claims in order. Your\nstakeholders (investors, non-government organisations, community activists,\nyour own business-to-business client accounts) no longer count on your PDF as\nthe single source of truth.\n\nThey will arrive with more information about your sustainability trajectory\nthan ever before and with the scenario-planning power to use it.\n\nContinue reading here (https://pr.report/qx9i).\n\n(https://app.accessnewswire.com/imagelibrary/ae89f04b-5a7c-4ae7-9b88-1e17ab018558/1229055/dbe68c6c-3508-4b5c-9a10-17d381f6fb73.jpeg)\nAI is both the motivator and key customer for sustainability\n\nFind more stories and multimedia from SAP at 3blmedia.com.\n(https://pr.report/qx9j)\n\nContact Info:\nSpokesperson: SAP\nWebsite: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/sap\nEmail: info@3blmedia.com\n\nSOURCE: SAP\nView the original press release\n(https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/computers-technology-and-internet/the-sustainability-pendulum-wont-land-where-it-started-1229055)\non ACCESS Newswire\n\n\nCopyright 2026 ACCESS Newswire. All Rights Reserved.","article_body_html":"","raw_payload":{"data":{"id":"nACSh2SPQa-20260930","title":"The Sustainability Pendulum Won't Land Where It Started","author":"ACCESSWIRE","ticker":"SAPG","created":"2026-09-30T15:55:00.813Z","tickers":["SAPG"],"exchange":"XETRA","article_body":"NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire (https://www.accessnewswire.com/) /\nSeptember 30, 2026 / Previously published by the World Economic Forum\n(https://pr.report/qx97)\n\nSophia Mendelsohn (https://pr.report/qx98), Chief Sustainability and\nCommercial Officer, SAP\n* While the once-popular environmental, social and governance metrics of 2021\nhave gone out of favour and been deprioritised, sustainability is set to gain\nvigour with the rise of AI.\n* Sustainability will be repositioned as a lever of competitiveness, with\ninvestment in renewable energy sources and an expanded calculation of climate\nrisk exposure that includes physical assets as well as emissions.\n* AI can assess the credibility of sustainability reporting with greater\naccuracy through better-performing models and expanded assessment\ncapabilities.\nThe enthusiasm for environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics that\nflowed through capital markets in 2021 has faded.\n\nWhat pushed it out of favour and, for some, down the list of strategic\npriorities, is familiar by now: political resistance, regulatory uncertainty,\ngreenwashing crackdowns and geopolitical conflicts. What's pulling it back is\nnewer - artificial intelligence (AI).\n\nNow, sustainability's standing is a pendulum: a combination of forces swung it\nout into unpopular territory but it is about to swing back. However, pendulums\nnever swing back to exactly where they were originally.\n\nI have argued before that AI needs sustainability more than sustainability\nneeds AI (https://pr.report/qx99). That's because a technology built on land,\nwater, and power is only permitted to scale where it is trusted and that trust\nrests on the discipline sustainability leaders have spent two decades\nbuilding.\n\nThe pendulum's return is that dependence is becoming visible on three fronts:\ncompetitiveness, risk exposure, and energy security.\n\nWhat sustainability looks like in the age of AI\n\nHere are the three places I expect the pendulum to settle.\n\n1. Competitiveness is the new net zero\n\nEnergy has become the input cost of intelligence. Access to cheap, clean,\nconsistent power now shapes who wins the AI race and when grid capacity\nbottlenecks the decade's biggest growth story, renewable energy requires no\nmoral argument.\n\nThe International Energy Agency projects that electricity demand from data\ncentres (https://pr.report/qx9a) will roughly double to around 945\nterawatt-hours (TWh) by 2030 (slightly more than Japan's entire consumption\ntoday), with AI as the most important driver (https://pr.report/qx9b) of that\ngrowth.\n\nThe infrastructure buildout behind those numbers is enormous; big-tech AI\ninfrastructure spending (https://pr.report/qx9c) is approaching the scale of\nglobal upstream oil-and-gas investment. Securing energy has moved from a\nnet-zero objective to a matter of industrial strategy.\n\nInvestors increasingly describe the energy transition in the language of\nsecurity, resilience, independence and competitiveness rather than carbon\nreduction. On the demand side, the same AI that strains the grid can optimize\nenergy, materials and logistics in ways that feed directly into margin.\n\nScaled responsibly, AI is a source of competitiveness and resilience rather\nthan a system stressor.\n\n2. Reporting will reward trajectory, not snapshots\n\nCurrent mandatory reporting remains material for the largest companies, even\nas the European Union has delayed and narrowed (https://pr.report/qx9d) parts\nof its reporting and due-diligence regime.\n\nHowever, its growing complexity will matter less than the compliance industry\nfears because AI is making disclosure cheap and routine. Once that happens,\ndisclosure is no longer a barrier to smaller companies. A report any company\ncan generate is a report no company can win with. Attention needs to shift\nfrom what your emissions are to where your capital is going.\n\nThe debate about transition portfolios has moved from excluding high emitters\nto asking whether a company is deploying serious capital into decarbonization,\neven while its current emissions remain high.\n\nInvestors are judging transitioners on trajectory and not just their current\ncarbon intensity.\n\nInvestment theses for companies such as German energy firm RWE\n(https://pr.report/qx9e), which allocated most of its 2024 cash CapEx (capital\nexpenditure) to offshore wind and onshore wind and solar, or Porsche\n(https://pr.report/qx9f), whose battery-electric vehicle share reached 22.2%\nin 2025, are increasingly tied to portfolio transformation rather than the\nlegacy on the books.\n\nTrajectory claims, though, invite a question which snapshots never faced: how\ndo we know you'll actually do it? This is where AI cuts both ways. The same\ntools that write the reports can check them against CapEx plans, supply chain\ndata and even satellite imagery.\n\nOne recent study (https://pr.report/qx9g) ran large language models across\nsatellite images and the environmental claims of 214 European companies. Only\n26% of the claims could be positively confirmed; 7.5% were flatly contradicted\nby what the satellites showed; the rest sat in a grey zone the models could\nnot yet resolve.\n\nThe bar is therefore moving from disclosure to verifiable reduction, tied to\nyour business model. As autonomous systems begin to act rather than advise,\nemissions adjustments and supplier decisions will need to be recorded and\ntraceable in the financial ledger like any other transaction.\n\n3. Physical climate risk will finally be priced\n\nAI keeps lifting the ceiling on what climate models can compute and better\nmodels mean insurers, lenders and investors can quantify physical climate risk\nat the level of individual assets.\n\nUnderwriters are already using forward-looking climate outputs to\ndifferentiate between locations and assets that once looked identical on\npaper. My expectation is straightforward: physical climate risk will soon\nreceive the analytical attention that carbon emissions receive now: priced and\nmoved onto the balance sheet.\n\nThe irony is that the industry building the risk models is also their most\nmotivated customer. AI infrastructure is a rapidly growing pool of physically\nexposed capital. A data centre is not a metaphor; it is a very large building\nthat runs hot, drinks water and pulls power, often in places already under\nclimate stress.\n\nIndustry analysis suggests that climate-related insurance costs for data\ncentres could triple or quadruple by 2050 (https://pr.report/qx9h) without\ndecisive mitigation and adaptation. This means the data foundation behind a\ncompany's climate-risk decisions is becoming one of its more valuable assets.\n\nHow to prepare for the return swing of sustainability\n\nThe pendulum will come to rest wherever claims can be verified. Companies\nwhose sustainability data can survive an auditor, an insurer and an AI reading\nsatellite imagery will find the swing at their backs. Everyone else will be\nexplaining themselves to the machines that performed the checks.\n\nThe corporate world has spent the past few years speaking less loudly about\nsustainability. That period is ending because AI has reattached sustainability\nto the things companies cannot ignore: energy costs, insurable risk and the\ncredibility of their own claims.\n\nThe transition opportunity now runs well beyond pure-play renewables into\ngrids, electrification equipment, industrial transformation and adaptation.\nCompanies still treating sustainability as a narrow compliance exercise will\nmiss the industrial realignment underway.\n\nPreparing for the swing means more than getting your claims in order. Your\nstakeholders (investors, non-government organisations, community activists,\nyour own business-to-business client accounts) no longer count on your PDF as\nthe single source of truth.\n\nThey will arrive with more information about your sustainability trajectory\nthan ever before and with the scenario-planning power to use it.\n\nContinue reading here (https://pr.report/qx9i).\n\n(https://app.accessnewswire.com/imagelibrary/ae89f04b-5a7c-4ae7-9b88-1e17ab018558/1229055/dbe68c6c-3508-4b5c-9a10-17d381f6fb73.jpeg)\nAI is both the motivator and key customer for sustainability\n\nFind more stories and multimedia from SAP at 3blmedia.com.\n(https://pr.report/qx9j)\n\nContact Info:\nSpokesperson: SAP\nWebsite: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/sap\nEmail: info@3blmedia.com\n\nSOURCE: SAP\nView the original press release\n(https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/computers-technology-and-internet/the-sustainability-pendulum-wont-land-where-it-started-1229055)\non ACCESS Newswire\n\n\nCopyright 2026 ACCESS Newswire. All Rights Reserved."},"type":"article","timestamp":"2026-09-30T15:55:00.864401041Z","server_sent_at_ms":1790783700864},"received_at":"2026-09-30T15:55:00.917Z","source_url":"https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/computers-technology-and-internet/the-sustainability-pendulum-wont-land-where-it-started-1229055"},"analysis":{"id":"145769","press_release_id":"157094","analysis_json":{"industry":{"label":"Software","sector":"Information Technology"},"redFlags":[],"eventType":"other","narrative":"This is a republished World Economic Forum op-ed by SAP's Chief Sustainability and Commercial Officer, Sophia Mendelsohn, arguing that ESG will regain momentum because AI depends on energy, water and land resources.\n\nThe piece contends sustainability will be repositioned around competitiveness, verifiable decarbonization trajectories, and priced physical climate risk, citing IEA projections that data-centre electricity demand will roughly double to about 945 TWh by 2030.\n\nIt is commentary, not an issuer disclosure: no financial results, guidance, transactions, or company-specific events are announced, so it carries no direct investment signal for the filer.","sentiment":"neutral","agentHooks":{"shouldPost":false,"suggestedAngle":"Suppress or tag as thought leadership -- no issuer-specific news content."},"keyFigures":{"customDimensions":{"porsche_bev_share_2025":"22.2%","climate_claim_verification":"only 26% of 214 European companies' claims positively confirmed; 7.5% flatly contradicted","datacentre_insurance_cost_outlook":"could triple or quadruple by 2050 without mitigation","datacentre_electricity_demand_2030_twh":945}},"quotedText":"Energy has become the input cost of intelligence.","namedEntities":{"people":[{"name":"Sophia Mendelsohn","role":"Chief Sustainability and Commercial Officer, SAP"}],"products":[],"companies":[{"name":"SAP","relationship":"author/subject of op-ed"},{"name":"World Economic Forum","relationship":"original publisher"},{"name":"RWE","relationship":"mentioned as example of energy transition"},{"name":"Porsche","relationship":"mentioned as example of portfolio transformation"},{"name":"International Energy Agency","relationship":"cited source"}],"dollarAmounts":[]},"materialImpact":{"score":1,"reasoning":"This is a republished World Economic Forum opinion piece by SAP's Chief Sustainability and Commercial Officer. It contains no company-specific financial disclosure, guidance, or material event; it is thought-leadership commentary on ESG and AI trends."},"tickerRelevance":{"others":[],"primary":"SAPG"},"globalImportance":5,"audienceRelevance":5,"eventTypeSecondary":[],"importanceComponents":{"eventGravity":"op-ed_thought_leadership","issuerAuthored":true,"hasFinancialDisclosure":false}},"event_type":"other","event_type_secondary":null,"sentiment":"neutral","material_impact_score":1,"narrative":"This is a republished World Economic Forum op-ed by SAP's Chief Sustainability and Commercial Officer, Sophia Mendelsohn, arguing that ESG will regain momentum because AI depends on energy, water and land resources.\n\nThe piece contends sustainability will be repositioned around competitiveness, verifiable decarbonization trajectories, and priced physical climate risk, citing IEA projections that data-centre electricity demand will roughly double to about 945 TWh by 2030.\n\nIt is commentary, not an issuer disclosure: no financial results, guidance, transactions, or company-specific events are announced, so it carries no direct investment signal for the filer.","key_figures":{"customDimensions":{"porsche_bev_share_2025":"22.2%","climate_claim_verification":"only 26% of 214 European companies' claims positively confirmed; 7.5% flatly contradicted","datacentre_insurance_cost_outlook":"could triple or quadruple by 2050 without mitigation","datacentre_electricity_demand_2030_twh":945}},"named_entities":{"people":[{"name":"Sophia Mendelsohn","role":"Chief Sustainability and Commercial Officer, SAP"}],"products":[],"companies":[{"name":"SAP","relationship":"author/subject of op-ed"},{"name":"World Economic Forum","relationship":"original publisher"},{"name":"RWE","relationship":"mentioned as example of energy transition"},{"name":"Porsche","relationship":"mentioned as example of portfolio transformation"},{"name":"International Energy Agency","relationship":"cited source"}],"dollarAmounts":[]},"model_name":"glm-5.3-flashx","prompt_hash":"sha256:727b4b9429a443af","schema_hash":"sha256:05005c02d9cffac9","created_at":"2026-09-30T15:55:07.373Z","global_importance":5,"audience_relevance":5,"importance_components":{"eventGravity":"op-ed_thought_leadership","issuerAuthored":true,"hasFinancialDisclosure":false}},"durationMs":6445,"modelName":"glm-5.3-flashx"}}