When I began studying sustainability, I didn’t realize how valuable my data management and analytics skills would be in this field.
Companies have to deal with a huge amount of sustainability and ESG-related data 😱. Prior to the Omnibus Simplification, the ESRS included about a thousand data points. While the specific data required can vary depending on the company and sector, companies are still expected to collect a large amount of information. To make things even more challenging, this data needs to be collected and reported every year and companies are required to ensure that their disclosures are consistent year after year.
Data sources are often highly fragmented. Some data might be stored in spreadsheets, others in OneDrive folders, some in databases, and even some buried in PDFs. Poor data management can lead to a lot of time wasted on extracting, cleaning and organizing data every time reporting is due. Without a proper system in place, it can become chaotic and very frustrating.
Working with a large amount of data doesn’t have to be painful. As long as you have a solid data pipeline that ingests data and stores it in a way that it can easily be retrieved, analyzed, and reused, the reporting process becomes much more efficient. This not only saves time but also improves the accuracy and consistency of your sustainability disclosures.