Four Things that Make ESG Sustainability Reporting Easy
The benefits of sustainability reporting have become very attractive today and are making more companies rethink their operating designs. Indeed, sustainability reporting has the answer to most issues affecting your enterprise. For example, suppose your market share has been declining. In that case, ESG sustainability reporting might be an excellent way to win more loyal clients and to build a stronger community around your brand. However, some indicate that ESG reporting is challenging because of issues such as cost and complexity in gathering data. In this post, we will tell you the four main things that can help to make reporting easy and convenient for your company.
Understanding the Sustainability Reporting Principles
The first thing you need to do to make sustainability reporting easy is to understand the process and develop clear goals. Particularly, you need to comprehend the main principles behind ESG reporting and how they can be employed in your organization. The most important principle of ESG reporting is transparency and accountability, which targets to ensure companies give the correct information. Other principles that you need to know include:
- Balance and neutrality.
- Consistency and comparability.
- Flexibility.
- Materiality.
- Reliability.
- Accuracy.
- Timeliness.
- Understandability.
Adopting an Appropriate Reporting Framework
One reason that makes sustainability reporting challenging for most companies is approaching the process without a clear strategy and framework. Instead, you should select a reporting framework that can guide you to achieving pre-set sustainability goals, capturing the information correctly, and reporting it in a way that all stakeholders can understand. Here are some of the common and highly effective ESG reporting frameworks that you should consider:
- Global reporting initiatives (GRI).
- Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) framework.
- Sustainability Accountability Standards Board (SASB).
Supportive Staff
When you craft a strategy for ESG sustainability reporting, whether focusing on improving the efficiency of the company’s production line or cutting down emissions, there must be a supportive staff to make the objectives achievable. With supportive employees, it becomes pretty easy to achieve the set goals and surpass them. This is why you should consider starting with staff training and building capacity on the importance of ESG reporting to all stakeholders.
Indeed, supportive staff will carry the brand even beyond their workstations. Away from work, your employees will want to be associated with the company because of its impressive reputation. For example, you will find them interacting with clients on social media, telling them bout the company’s sustainability efforts, the quality of the products, and the need to join the brand community. These additional efforts might be all that your firm needs to grow sales and profits.
Automating the ESG Reporting Process
To make your sustainability reporting efforts work, you need to include every effort, strategy, and goal in the report. The challenges encountered along the way, plus how you address them, should also be highlighted. Gathering this information manually and ensuring it is correctly factored in the report can be challenging. This is why you should work with good Sustainability management software.
Diginex has stood out in its efforts to help companies implement ESG reporting easily. You will also like its design because it is easy to integrate with company management system and automate data collection. For example, you can allow different team leaders to input sustainability data as opposed to waiting until the end of the financial year. With the info, generating quarterly reports will also be pretty easy. Although some people indicate that implementing ESG sustainability reporting is challenging, it does not have to be if you follow the tips that we have listed above. Particularly, you should have a good framework and sustainability reporting software to guide the entire process.