In addition to legal obligations, there are more good reasons to engage in sustainability reporting. For example, your customers or investors may ask for it. Potential new employees want to know whether you are being sustainable enough. Or you want to improve your sustainability practices on your own initiative, such as using less energy, reducing the number of car or air journeys, or working more safely. Financial pressure is also increasing, with heavy industry paying significantly more for its CO2 emissions in the coming years. The first step in creating an ESG report is to determine your objectives: what do you want to achieve with it?

Every company has different priorities regarding ESG. For example, lower emissions and safe working will be a priority for companies in the oil and gas industry. While an organization with a lot of privacy-sensitive data in-house will have data governance high on its priority list. Analyze which environmental, social and governance factors are relevant to your company and your sector. And focus on the areas that have the most impact on your business performance and all parties that have a stake in it.

How do you get reliable data to report on the ESG aspects that you want to make transparent? You’ll be surprised how much data you already have in-house. Just think of operational statistics, such as the years of maintenance history that you have built up in IBM Maximo. You can extract a lot of valuable data from this to help you make more sustainable choices. For example, is it necessary to replace an asset or is revision sufficient? And what does remote monitoring of assets with sensors save on CO2 emissions? Identify which data you need, which data you have and where it is necessary to enrich it. Data from external sources can also be useful, for example data on weather conditions that may impact the condition of your assets.

The more concrete your ESG objectives, the better you can measure how you are performing. What progress are you making? And where is there still room for improvement? The SMART method helps you to clarify your objectives. SMART stands for specific, measurable, acceptable, relevant and time-bound. A SMART objective could be, for example, to save twenty percent on energy in the next three years by installing a water pump. Or to reduce the number of car journeys by a third in the coming year by equipping assets with smart sensors.

Sustainable working is complex and comprehensive. You simply cannot tackle everything at once. But you can make a start with reporting that clearly shows what you are doing. Communicate honestly about your performance in the field of ESG, both about the successes you have achieved and about the challenges you have encountered. And provide insight into the steps you are taking to make improvements.

Involvement of all stakeholders is an important factor for the success of any project. Yet this is still often lacking in practice. Therefore, involve all relevant parties in the creation of your ESG report, from investors, employees and customers to communities. Their input can offer you valuable perspectives and creates support for your sustainability initiatives.