Mercedes-Benz Builds Data Centre-Led ESG Reporting Platform

Mercedes-Benz’s strategy for managing ESG data hinges on robust digital infrastructure, with data centres playing a central role.

As the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) comes into force across the European Union, companies like Mercedes-Benz must overhaul how they collect, process and report sustainability data.

To comply and remain competitive, the company has turned to SAP’s cloud-powered tools, building a scalable data centre architecture that supports compliance, analytics and transparency.

Cloud systems are central to ESG transformation

With the introduction of the CSRD, ESG data management has shifted from periodic reporting to continuous tracking.

The directive requires companies to follow the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), reporting on a wide range of KPIs (key performance indicators) across categories such as carbon emissions, resource use and social impact.

This means companies must track metrics like energy consumption with detailed breakdowns – for example, specifying the type of energy sources used.

Mercedes-Benz needed a cloud-native, centralised reporting environment that could integrate data from across its global operations.

The solution had to serve more than 50 stakeholders spanning multiple departments, geographies and divisions, all within 12 months.

Enter SAP Sustainability Control Tower, backed by SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud.

These tools form the backbone of a global data platform that operates through Mercedes-Benz’s data centres, enabling real-time ESG data collection, integration and analysis.

The company also links the system to a third-party disclosure management platform, providing a single, seamless data flow from entry to final reporting.

Jochen Herold, Project Manager for Sustainability Performance Management at Mercedes-Benz Group AG, says: “We had to report in a standardised and auditable way on a huge range of KPIs, for example, energy consumption and break these down into numerous data points, such as the individual energy sources involved.”

Data centre architecture supports global rollout

The scale of the project is substantial. Mercedes-Benz operates through three divisions – cars, vans and mobility – across nearly 40 countries.

Coordinating ESG reporting across this footprint meant standardising a complex organisational and master data structure, with IT infrastructure serving as the operational core.

SAP’s solution is delivered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, hosted across SAP’s cloud environment, which integrates with Mercedes-Benz’s global data centres.

This architecture not only handles large volumes of structured ESG data but also supports automated workflows, real-time validation and change tracking.

These features reduce the need for manual data input, improve consistency and speed up reporting.

Using SAP’s semantic data model, already aligned with ESRS requirements, Mercedes-Benz can select the required indicators and import corresponding data without building custom models from scratch.

This is especially critical when data must be shared across departments and externally verified for audit purposes.

After evaluating multiple options, the company conducted a successful proof of concept and rolled out the platform across its global sustainability reporting team.

The implementation was supported by SAP’s Business Transformation Services, which guided solution functionality, process optimisation and stakeholder alignment.

According to SAP, ~95% of required EU CSRD data points are now collected through audit-ready workflows, with 70 fully auditable KPIs and 220 associated data points captured.

SaaS model improves efficiency and lowers IT cost

One of the core benefits of SAP’s ESG platform lies in its ability to simplify IT operations.

Delivered through a SaaS model, the system removes the need for Mercedes-Benz to maintain on-premises infrastructure.

This not only cuts IT costs but also enhances security, scalability and access control.

The platform is built to be intuitive, offering features such as email alerts, live validation of data entries and report previews.

Business units welcomed these functions, which allowed them to better manage ESG responsibilities with minimal disruption to other operations.

Beyond compliance, Mercedes-Benz sees the system as a way to drive its long-term Ambition 2039 strategy.

This strategy targets carbon neutrality across the company’s value chain by 2039 and rests on six sustainability focus areas:

• Decarbonisation
• Resource use and circularity,
• Employees
• Human rights
• Digital trust
• Traffic safety

By consolidating data within a central ESG hub and aligning it with the ESRS framework, Mercedes-Benz now has a platform that supports both regulatory compliance and broader sustainability goals.

The company can track performance over time, benchmark against targets and present results to stakeholders in a transparent, structured format.

Anita Varshney, Global Vice President, Strategic Customer Engagements at SAP Sustainability, notes the importance of collaboration in the project: “Our joint ambition was to enable them to efficiently collect, analyse and report on ESRS within a short time frame, automating this reporting process across 50+ business stakeholders.”