From government mandates to supplier scorecards, ESG disclosure demands are multiplying. As major corporations increasingly require detailed sustainability reporting from their suppliers, businesses face a complex web of overlapping requirements—each with its own metrics, frameworks, and deadlines.
Growing complexity of reporting requirements
Sustainability teams today must navigate a maze of reporting frameworks, each with its own specific requirements and methodologies.
Many organizations are juggling multiple major initiatives simultaneously, from voluntary global impact reports and science-based targets to climate transition plans, resilience analyses, and new regulatory requirements. This proliferation of requirements puts significant pressure on often small sustainability teams to collect, validate, and report an ever-expanding set of metrics.
The push-pull between voluntary and regulatory reporting
A key tension exists between regulatory compliance and voluntary disclosure in the ESG reporting landscape. As regulatory requirements become more comprehensive, some organizations are questioning whether to maintain separate voluntary disclosures when much of the same information will be included in mandatory filings.
However, voluntary reports continue to serve important purposes, particularly in employee engagement and storytelling. The challenge lies in finding the right balance between meeting regulatory requirements while maintaining meaningful voluntary disclosures that showcase initiatives and progress.
Key frameworks and standards
Organizations must report across multiple frameworks, including:
- Regulatory requirements like the EU's CSRD and SFDR, and California's SB 253 and SB 261
- Voluntary frameworks such as GRI, SASB, and EDCI
- Investor-focused disclosures through CDP and various ESG rating agencies
- Customer-requested certifications and assessments like EcoVadis
Sustainability teams are actively seeking clarity on how to handle the evolving landscape of reporting frameworks as the industry continues to mature and frameworks potentially consolidate or transform. The complexity is compounded by the fact that these frameworks often ask for similar information in different ways, creating additional burden on reporting teams.
This shifting landscape requires sustainability teams to be both strategic in their approach and efficient in their execution, focusing resources on the most material issues while building robust data collection and reporting processes that can adapt to changing requirements.
Building an effective ESG team structure
Modern ESG reporting demands a thoughtfully structured team that can handle both the technical demands of data collection and the strategic elements of sustainability program management. Based on insights from industry leaders, successful ESG teams are built on a foundation of core expertise while leveraging broader organizational resources.
Core team responsibilities
While the size and structure of core ESG teams vary significantly based on company size and industry, many organizations operate with a small, focused team that divides responsibilities across key functions. A typical team structure may look something like this:
- Chief Sustainability Officer providing strategic leadership
- Data management specialist handling GHG inventory and environmental metrics
- ESG reporting specialist managing frameworks, ratings, and regulatory disclosures
Even with relatively small teams, clear role definition helps ensure comprehensive coverage of essential functions. As regulatory requirements increase, many organizations are adding specialized roles like ESG controllers and analysts to manage the growing compliance burden.
Extended "team of teams" model
Leading organizations are adopting a distributed model where the core ESG team is supported by sustainability champions embedded throughout the business. This approach includes a sustainability center of excellence in Operations, sustainable procurement specialists, product innovation and stewardship teams in R&D, and ESG champions in various business units.
This distributed structure helps ensure sustainability is integrated across the business while maintaining centralized coordination. It creates networks of individuals throughout the organization who have sustainability responsibilities incorporated into their roles.
Working with Legal, Finance, and other departments
Successful ESG teams build strong partnerships with other key functions:
- Legal teams for regulatory compliance and disclosure review
- Finance and internal audit for data validation
- Corporate communications for reporting and stakeholder engagement
- Operations teams for data collection and implementation
The relationship with legal and finance is particularly crucial for regulatory reporting, as these partnerships help ensure that ESG disclosures meet both regulatory requirements and internal control standards.
This integrated approach to team structure reflects the evolving nature of ESG reporting, where success depends not just on the core sustainability team but on effective collaboration across the organization.
As reporting requirements continue to grow in complexity, this "team of teams" model becomes increasingly important for managing the expanding scope of ESG disclosure and implementation.
Data: The foundation of successful ESG reporting
Quality data lies at the heart of effective ESG reporting yet collecting, validating, and managing this data remains one of the biggest challenges for sustainability teams. As reporting requirements grow more stringent and stakeholder scrutiny increases, the need for robust ESG data management becomes ever more critical.
Common data collection challenges
Sustainability teams face multiple hurdles in gathering ESG data. Manual data collection processes consume significant time and resources as data is scattered across multiple systems and departments. Inconsistency in data formats and calculation methodologies makes it difficult to track data lineage and maintain audit trails.
Even at sophisticated organizations with mature sustainability programs, teams often find themselves relying on basic tools like email and spreadsheets for data collection and management. The process typically involves lengthy email chains between suppliers, internal stakeholders, and facility managers, with important information often getting buried in inboxes or lost in multiple rounds of revisions.
The problem with manual processes
Manual data collection and management creates several risks:
- Human error in data entry and calculations
- Inconsistent tracking and version control
- Time-intensive processes that limit strategic work
This reliance on manual processes becomes increasingly unsustainable as reporting requirements expand.
Data quality and assurance requirements
With growing regulatory oversight and stakeholder scrutiny, data quality and assurance have become critical concerns.
Increasing requirements for third-party assurance and a need for documented data governance and controls pose a challenge in maintaining data integrity across multiple reporting frameworks. This is why it’s important to have traceable audit trails.
As a result, many organizations are working to establish stronger governance and control processes for manual data collection while they develop more automated, technology-driven solutions.
The goal is to create systems reliable enough to achieve limited assurance status, with clear paths toward more comprehensive assurance in the future.
The path forward clearly points to the need for more sophisticated data management solutions that can:
- Automate data collection and validation
- Provide clear audit trails
- Enable scaling of reporting capabilities
- Support multiple reporting frameworks
- Maintain data quality and consistency
This evolution from manual processes to automated systems represents not just an operational improvement but a strategic necessity for organizations serious about meeting their ESG reporting obligations.
Prioritizing reporting efforts
With limited resources and expanding requirements, sustainability teams must make strategic decisions about where to focus their reporting efforts. Success requires a balanced approach that considers regulatory requirements, stakeholder demands, and organizational capacity.
Using double materiality to focus resources
Double materiality has emerged as a crucial framework for prioritizing ESG efforts and disclosures, helping organizations move away from trying to address everything superficially and instead focus resources on what truly matters from both impact and financial materiality perspectives.
This focused approach helps organizations concentrate resources on the most significant issues, streamline data collection efforts, align reporting with strategic priorities, and make clearer decisions about voluntary disclosures.
Balancing stakeholder demands
Organizations face pressure from multiple stakeholders with varying information needs.
Regulatory bodies require specific disclosures, while investors seek risk and performance data regularly to maintain consistency and accuracy across their portfolios.
Customers also request and often demand sustainability certifications, while employees look for engagement and progress updates to feel empowered by their organization.
Because there are requests coming from so many angles, companies are now taking a data-driven approach to these requests, systematically tracking both customer and investor inquiries to inform strategic decisions.
For example: when sustainability teams receive repeated requests for specific certifications or ratings from key customers, they can use this data to build business cases for new initiatives and justify investments in particular reporting frameworks or sustainability programs.
Managing customer and investor requests
Companies are developing more systematic approaches to handling the growing volume of sustainability-related requests by directing stakeholders to existing public disclosures where possible and prioritizing requests based on business impact.
This standardizes responses to common inquiries and limits customized reporting to key stakeholders.
Managing customer requests effectively requires establishing clear priorities and building efficient processes to handle recurring inquiries. This systematic approach allows sustainability teams to focus their limited resources on activities that create the most value for both the organization and its stakeholders.
Technology solutions for ESG reporting
As ESG reporting requirements grow in complexity, organizations are recognizing that spreadsheets and manual processes can no longer support their needs effectively. The move toward technology solutions has become not just an efficiency play, but a strategic necessity.
Moving beyond spreadsheets and emails
The limitations of traditional tools are becoming increasingly apparent:
Spreadsheets are prone to version control issues and errors. Email-based data collection creating communication bottlenecks, and manual processes struggle to scale with growing requirements. This creates difficulty in maintaining audit trails and data governance.
Many sustainability teams, even at large organizations, are still relying on basic tools like Microsoft Word or Google Sheets to track different reporting requirements and stakeholder requests.
This approach, while functional in the past, is proving inadequate as reporting requirements become more complex.
Key requirements for ESG software
Organizations are looking for comprehensive solutions that can:
- Consolidate data from multiple sources
- Support multiple reporting frameworks
- Maintain clear audit trails
- Enable workflow automation
- Provide quality control mechanisms
A critical need is the ability to track data provenance—understanding where information came from, who last modified it, and what changes were made. Organizations also need systems that can streamline data collection by allowing direct data entry from various stakeholders while maintaining data integrity.
Check out the best ESG reporting software solutions to consider buying to handle multiple reporting frameworks.
Integration with existing systems
A critical consideration for technology solutions is their ability to work with existing infrastructure, including:
- API connections to legacy systems
- Integration with financial and operational data sources
- Compatibility with existing workflow processes
- Scalability to accommodate future requirements
Flexibility for the future
The right technology solution should not only solve current challenges but provide a foundation for future needs. As organizations mature in their ESG reporting journey, they need platforms that can grow with them, adapting to new requirements while maintaining data integrity and reporting efficiency.
This forward-looking approach is essential for organizations serious about building sustainable, scalable ESG reporting capabilities.
The shift from manual processes to automated solutions represents more than just an operational improvement—it's a strategic investment in the organization's ability to meet evolving ESG reporting requirements effectively and efficiently.
How Pulsora supports sustainability teams
As organizations grapple with expanding ESG reporting requirements, Pulsora emerges as a comprehensive solution designed to address the complex challenges faced by sustainability teams. The platform combines robust data management capabilities with sophisticated reporting tools to streamline the entire ESG reporting process.
Comprehensive data collection and management
Pulsora offers a purpose-built sustainability management platform that helps organizations:
- Centralize data collection across all ESG metrics
- Calculate carbon emissions across Scope 1, 2, and all 15 categories of Scope 3
- Maintain data quality and consistency
- Support both voluntary and regulatory reporting needs
Good data gets you better insights to drive better value within your organizations.
Pulsora's platform ensures that organizations have the data foundation they need for effective reporting and decision-making.
Framework mapping and reporting automation
The platform addresses one of the key challenges in ESG reporting—managing multiple frameworks and requirements:
- Automated mapping across different reporting frameworks
- Support for regulatory requirements like CSRD
- Integration with voluntary reporting frameworks
- Direct submission capabilities for frameworks like CDP and EDCI
See how CompuGroup Medical uses Pulsora to streamline CSRD compliance.
API connections to legacy systems
Pulsora recognizes the importance of working with existing infrastructure:
- Seamless integration with legacy systems through API connections
- Ability to consolidate data from multiple sources
- Flexibility to accommodate different data formats
- Scalability to support growing reporting needs
Audit trail and data governance
The platform provides robust governance features:
- Clear tracking of data sources and changes
- Documentation of calculation methodologies
- Support for third-party assurance requirements
- Maintained data integrity and security
Future-proofed platform capabilities
Pulsora is designed to grow with organizations' needs:
- Regular updates to accommodate new reporting requirements
- Expandable functionality to support emerging frameworks
- Continuous enhancement of automation capabilities
- Ongoing development of new features based on user needs
Organizations are increasingly recognizing the need for solutions that can centralize their ESG data in one location while mapping it efficiently to different reporting frameworks. This capability has become a crucial requirement for modern ESG reporting platforms.
By providing a comprehensive, integrated solution for ESG reporting, Pulsora helps organizations move beyond the limitations of manual processes and fragmented systems to build more efficient, effective sustainability programs. The platform's capabilities directly address the challenges identified by sustainability leaders, offering a path forward for organizations looking to enhance their ESG reporting capabilities.
Best practices for handling multiple reporting frameworks in the future
Drawing from the insights of experienced sustainability leaders, several key practices emerge as essential for building successful and sustainable ESG reporting programs. These practices focus on both organizational alignment and practical implementation strategies.
Building internal buy-in
Successful ESG reporting requires broad organizational support:
Engage key stakeholders early in the process and demonstrate the business value of robust ESG reporting. By connecting sustainability initiatives to business outcomes and building an understanding of regulatory requirements across teams, you’ll overcome a key challenge many sustainability teams face: engaging with numerous colleagues for whom sustainability reporting is not their primary role.
Having a centralized platform that serves as a single source of truth for sustainability data has become increasingly important for streamlining these collaborations and maintaining consistency across reporting efforts.
Resource allocation strategies
Organizations must be strategic about how they deploy limited resources. Focus efforts on material issues and leverage technology to automate routine tasks. Build scalable processes that can grow with requirements and invest in systems that reduce manual effort.
The key is finding ways to do more with existing resources by focusing on driving efficiencies, optimizing processes, and making decisions based on data and facts rather than intuition.
Planning for emerging requirements
Forward-looking organizations are preparing for future reporting demands by monitoring evolving regulatory requirements, assessing potential impacts of new frameworks, building flexible systems that can adapt to change, and maintaining awareness of industry trends and best practices.
While the detailed requirements of frameworks like CSRD can seem daunting at first, sustainability teams are finding success by diving deep into understanding the requirements, seeking appropriate support, and securing organizational buy-in for implementation efforts.
Leveraging technology for business value
Technology investments should deliver four broader business benefits:
- Use ESG data to inform business strategy
- Identify opportunities for operational improvements
- Support better decision-making across the organization
- Enable proactive risk management
Organizations are increasingly seeking solutions that go beyond basic data collection, looking for platforms that can help drive better, more efficient business management.
The path to successful ESG reporting requires a balanced approach that combines strategic thinking with practical implementation. Organizations that can build strong foundations while maintaining flexibility for future changes will be best positioned to meet evolving reporting requirements while delivering value to their stakeholders.
Looking ahead
The future of ESG reporting is evolving rapidly, presenting both challenges and opportunities for organizations. Understanding emerging trends and preparing for future requirements will be crucial for sustainability teams.
The evolution of voluntary reporting
The relationship between voluntary and mandatory reporting is undergoing significant change:
- Questions about the future role of voluntary frameworks like CDP
- Potential consolidation of reporting standards
- Evolution of stakeholder expectations
However, voluntary reports retain significant value, particularly for employee engagement and showcasing sustainability initiatives. The challenge lies in finding the right balance and potentially reimagining the role of traditional voluntary frameworks in this new regulatory landscape.
Preparing for new regulations
Organizations must stay ahead of regulatory changes, like:
- CSRD implementation and impact
- Integration of double materiality assessments
- Enhanced assurance requirements
- Growing focus on data quality and controls
Many sustainability teams are already taking proactive steps, conducting double materiality assessments and gap analyses for upcoming requirements like CSRD. Through these assessments, they're identifying critical gaps in their current data collection and developing remediation strategies to address these shortcomings.
Building competitive advantage through ESG excellence
Forward-thinking organizations are leveraging ESG performance to create business value:
- Enhanced product positioning and market access
- Improved stakeholder relationships
- Operational efficiencies and cost savings
- Risk management and resilience
Strong ESG performance can translate into tangible business benefits.
For example, products with Amazon’s Climate Pledge Friendly certifications may receive preferential placement in Amazon’s stores, leading to better performance compared to non-certified alternatives. Products with recognized environmental certifications often outperform their non-certified counterparts. This demonstrates how robust ESG practices can translate directly into business success.
The future of ESG reporting will require organizations to be both adaptable and strategic, balancing compliance requirements with business opportunities. Success will depend on building robust systems and processes that can evolve with changing requirements while delivering value to the organization and its stakeholders.
As reporting requirements continue to mature, the focus will increasingly shift from simply meeting compliance obligations to leveraging ESG performance as a driver of business success.
Take the next step in your ESG reporting journey
As sustainability reporting requirements continue to evolve, the time to strengthen your ESG reporting infrastructure is now. Whether you're struggling with manual processes, preparing for CSRD compliance, or looking to create more value from your sustainability data, Pulsora can help.
Our platform is built specifically for the challenges facing today's sustainability teams, offering:
- Automated data collection and validation
- Comprehensive framework mapping
- Built-in carbon calculations
- Robust audit trails
- Seamless integration with existing systems
Don't wait until regulatory deadlines force your hand. Join forward-thinking organizations like Workday and BlackRock in building a stronger foundation for your ESG reporting.
Want to see how Pulsora can transform your sustainability reporting from a challenge into a competitive advantage? Schedule a meeting with our team to learn more.
