EDITOR ’ S QUESTION

LEVENT ERGIN , CHIEF INFORMATION

SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGIST , INFORMATICA

Businesses are facing a raft of new regulations on ESG reporting , including around Scope 3 emissions – which originate not with the organisation itself but with suppliers in its wider ecosystem . That means ESG reporting is now an imperative rather than a nice-to-have , but the amount of ESG data businesses need to locate , clean and organise has grown rapidly – and the process of collecting it has become much more complex . Organisations now need to collate information from a whole range of companies , which will potentially come to them in a variety of formats and need to then be organised , standardised and submitted to the regulator in the correct format .

And it ’ s not just Scope 3 reporting that keeps CIOs up at night . Other regulations such as the German Supply Chain Act , EU ’ s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the EU ’ s Deforestation

As precision becomes the priority , organisations will need control over their own data collection , management and analysis – all of which ultimately lands at the feet of the CIO .

Regulation all require a robust , data-centric approach to ensure compliance .

It ’ s clear that sustainability is very much a key concern for CIOs . They have responsibility for ensuring their organisations can handle the new influx of data properly – ensuring accuracy , quality and usability of data . The key to strong , accurate reporting is , of course , strong , accurate data . As precision becomes the priority , organisations will need control over their own data collection , management and analysis – all of which ultimately lands at the feet of the CIO . To ensure regulations are accurately met , organisations need to be able to understand exactly how their ESG figures have been reached , which means their data collection and management capabilities need to be top-flight .

Many of the functions that need tracking for ESG reporting may not have previously been subject to regulation . So in many cases , that means there won ’ t be processes or infrastructure in place to enable robust data collection . At present , much of the data input in these areas may be manual which brings with it the risk of human error . To counter these challenges , businesses need to use advanced data management tools that will accelerate processes and improve accuracy – optical character recognition ( OCR ), for example , which can scan a utility bill , automatically capture key pieces of information and gather it into a structured format . Or linking smart meters to a central data management system that can compile and standardise data into a usable form .

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