o9 Solutions launches a sustainability solutions suite

o9 Solutions, a enterprise of AI software platform provider for transforming planning and decision-making, has announced the launch of a broad and deep set of sustainability solutions that are embedded in its integrated business planning platform, including product and enterprise environmental footprint measurement, full traceability, ESG risk management, ESG-enabled business planning, sustainable sourcing and supply chain circularity.

The first offering of its kind in the supply chain software space, o9’s new sustainability solutions help organisations improve the environmental and social impact KPIs of their supply chains. Companies that operate some of the largest and most complex global supply chains can now not only measure and report on their sustainability performance, but can also make planning decisions to reduce their carbon footprint and make meaningful progress toward net-zero goals. The o9 sustainability solutions incorporate international standards-based sustainability metrics, analytics and KPIs into the AI-enabled o9 Digital Brain platform, powered by its patented Enterprise Knowledge Graph technology for best-in-class supply chain modelling. Integrating full-spectrum sustainability data into the o9 platform gives companies the ability to assess their sustainability performance within all planning and operational activities, as well as the ability to identify and make data-driven decisions around tradeoffs between financial costs, service levels and ESG objectives.

“A significant portion of a company’s environmental and social impact stems from its supply chain activities,” said Stanton Thomas, Senior Vice President of Sustainability, o9 Solutions. “While there is a growing number of sustainability-focused software and consulting companies entering the market, sustainability initiatives are currently managed outside of core enterprise and supply chain planning systems. With our new sustainability solutions embedded in the o9 platform, we are uniquely positioned to combine our powerful value chain modelling technology with a complete data management capability for acquiring, validating, cleansing and harmonising ESG data from diverse structured and unstructured sources. Expanding our product portfolio to include capabilities for tracking and managing ESG metrics and KPIs marks an important milestone in o9’s product evolution, and we are excited to help our clients meet their toughest sustainable supply chain challenges.”

Throughout the last year, o9 completed several sustainability solution proof of concepts with clients across a wide range of industries, as well as initiated the co-development of a new CO2 emissions tracking capability with a leading manufacturer. The launch of o9’s new sustainability solutions arrives at a pivotal point in time with companies facing mounting pressure from their stakeholders to reduce their negative environmental and social impacts, as well as recent regulatory actions in Europe, Asia and the U.S. that could result in barriers to key markets or significant fines if violated. The launch also marks an important next step in o9’s commitment to help large organisations transform their costly, complex and resource-intensive supply chains into efficient and sustainable operating models. It is this mission that drove Generation Investment Management, General Atlantic and its BeyondNetZero venture to join KKR in investing $295 million in o9 to accelerate the adoption of its game-changing platform by large enterprises across a wide variety of industry verticals.

“Technology is needed to support supply chain leaders in their efforts to set sustainability goals not only to protect brand reputation, but also to reduce their vulnerability to future supply chain disruptions related to climate change, taxes levied on carbon emissions and other ESG regulatory implications,” said Igor Rikalo, President and COO, o9 Solutions. “At o9, we understand the deeply interconnected nature of sustainability, optimal supply chain performance and technology. We are excited to open the o9 platform up to a rapidly growing market for ESG solutions and most importantly, fulfil our mission of helping the world’s largest organisations create environmentally and socially sustainable supply chains that will benefit all of humanity.”