How to Make Sustainability Reporting Easier This Year
Companies are under increased pressure from customers and investors to improve reporting on environmental and sustainability governance and performance. Companies are using reporting frameworks such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to provide structure and credibility to their sustainability reports and participate in benchmarks or indices such as the CDP, GRESB and ENERGY STAR to benchmark and promote leadership within their industry.
Each year, EcoStruxure™ Resource Advisor supports companies across the globe reporting to these frameworks ever year. Each of these programs require slightly different information and their tools have varying methods for collecting data. Below describes how Resource Advisor can help companies manage the reporting process for each framework.
GRI
GRI is an independent international organization that develops standards for sustainability reporting. Many business rely on their standards to organize and effectively communicate their corporate social responsibility metrics and strategies. Resource Advisor is a GRI certified software tool, meaning it contains accurate GRI content that can help companies collect the right data. Companies can rely on pre-built survey forms and external reporting feature to effectively collaborate and manage the GRI reporting process, and map data directly to their submission.
CDP
Companies that disclose to CDP are familiar with the extensive questionnaires covering climate change, water, forest, and supply chain impacts. CDP encompasses both quantitative and qualitative questions about a company’s sustainability program. To submit a strong report, companies need to have a firm grasp on both the qualitative and quantitative aspects. A tool that not only handles the complex needs of a comprehensive emissions inventory, but one that also allows collaboration on the narrative is ideal.Multiple departments and teams contribute to a report – rarely is it the sole job of a sustainability team. A successful reporting year needs someone to manage all the contributions of a final submittal. Resource Advisor’s external reporting feature simplifies this process by combining the quantitative data with the narrative behind risk management and sustainability strategy in one area.
GRESB
GRESB is an assessment that validates, scores, and benchmarks ESG performance data for the commercial real estate market. The assessment is more specific to the concerns of that industry but still face much of the same challenges as those completing the CDP questionnaire. A unique feature of GRESB is an open portal to automatically push quantitative data into their tool, enabling full push button capabilities in a way the CDP’s platform does not have today. Resource Advisor users, like Forest City, take advantage of this push functionality and automatically pushes data to GRESB, making reporting much easier.
ENERGY STAR
Buildings waste about a third of the energy they use. That’s why ENERGY STAR, works to drive environmental benefits and financial value through energy efficiency. ENERGY STAR is a voluntary reporting program like GRI, CDP, and GRESB but the intent behind it is much different. ENERGY STAR scores certain property types on a 1-100 ENERGY STAR scale to compare each property’s energy use to similar properties in the U.S. This allows companies to recognize leaders and laggards and better target efficiency opportunities. ENERGY STAR is the primary tool for many cities in the U.S. for their mandatory energy disclosure programs. It can be tough to integrate all energy data and space attribute information within ENERGY STAR’s tool, Portfolio Manager. Resource Advisor makes this process easier by automating the data transfer to Portfolio Manager and providing a window into the Portfolio Manager tool to view space attribute data.
Contributed by Chelsea Heeman, Software Solutions Architect
Are you reporting to sustainability frameworks? Learn more about how Resource Advisor can make your next reporting season easier.