Breaking through the vicious cycle of sustainability reporting

Almost two decades ago, with the launch of the Global Reporting Initiative a new community was formed – one focused solely around sustainability data. Expectations were high. The new reporting guidelines were envisioned as management tools that create a constructive conversation between companies and their stakeholders, enabling one and all to compare performance and discuss the road ahead.

But the process soon took the wrong turn. In an effort to be inclusive and cater to all needs, producing a sustainability report became a cumbersome effort that, by the time reports were published, left little to celebrate beyond the actual reporting itself. Few made any effort to compare performance between companies, discuss goals or even inquire on best practices. The majority of the discussion focused on the report's completeness. Naturally, this type of discourse has little business value and what's more, is excruciatingly boring both to businesses and their stakeholders alike.

Try ecoOS's environmental benchmarking tools and jumpstart your sustainability program

Thus, many early sustainability teams that have cropped up within the larger corporations find themselves having to market the value of sustainability reporting internally, against all odds. The process simply doesn't create enough value for most of the internal participants, but requires significant time and effort to reach the necessary data.

So how do we break the vicious cycle? Is there a way out?

At ecoOS we are steering clients away from cumbersome data collection exercises and endless protocol interpretations. Instead, clients are sheltered from professional complexity by smart algorithms, big data analytics and a user-friendly trail that walks you through your industry, internal and supply-chain benchmarks. ecoOS is designed to pinpoint areas of vulnerability and potential opportunities to leap-frog, to aid decision-making. Even with partial internal data, the online service lends a guiding hand in setting quantitative goals that are both sector and eco-relevant. With this new approach to marrying business and environmental performance, reporting recedes to its intended proportions both as an effort and an expense. Find out how ecoOS can help your company transform its environmental performance.