Intelligent Sustainability Reporting | ESG

| 5 minutes read |

What is Intelligent Sustainability Reporting?

The external need for more transparency, comparability and sustainability has led to an increase in reports that periodically need to be produced by corporate or group reporting departments; Intelligent Sustainability Reporting. Integrating reporting (IR), Sustainability Reporting, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), ESG-criteria, they all demand data that differs from traditional information that is in its nature more quantitative oriented and based on financial-, production- or intellectual capital.

KPI reporting as part of P&C cycle for Sustainability Reporting

Reporting on KPI’s like carbon footprint, water usage, labor circumstances of employees of suppliers in foreign countries can make finance professionals nervous. They are not yet comfortable with the origin and interpretation of this kind of data. Is the statement of a supplier reliable when they state that they work climate-neutral, while knowing that the production facility used is outdated?

To become more comfortable with this kind of data for Intelligent Sustainability Reporting, we need to incorporate it in our reporting calendar as soon as possible and just start working with it. It is to be expected that the obligation, the amount of detail and KPI’s will increase in the coming years. Although a lot of companies have incorporated this kind of information in their annual reports it is still not, for most companies, a part of their periodic reporting cycle.

How can modern technology help with Intelligent Sustainability Reporting?

Except for not being comfortable with this kind of data for Intelligent Sustainability Reporting, it is also an enormous job for large organizations with many reporting entities and stakeholders to collect and interpret the data. So there is a real need for automation. CPM tooling can be used but does not deliver the key solutions for collecting the qualitative information and may even be more expensive when new licenses are needed. There are also multiple reporting standards in the world for sustainability but GRI seems to become more and more the standard. And standards are needed for making reporting on sustainability transparent and comparable.

Modern technologies like ESGEO powered by Sturnis365 can deliver business value by addressing all mentioned challenges.

The ESGEO cloud solution allows any organization to:

• Define, budget and monitor ESG KPIs, increasing engagement from middle management
• Reduce risk of controversies by outlining the organizational chain of responsibilities over ESG factors
• Strengthen the sustainability reporting process, including the final annual statement
• Remain up to date and compliant with changing regulatory requirements

With the combination of ESGEO and Sturnis365 any organization can make a valuable business case to automate, streamline and simplify financial, internal and sustainability reporting and disclosures while saving on costs.