Get sustainability reporting right for your business.

Transcription

1 Get sustainability reporting right for your business. Smart Data service At Carbon Smart, we help organisations get sustainability right. Since 2007, our consultants have worked with clients to deliver innovative and practical solutions that make business sense. Our Smart Data service gives clients a tailored, continuous approach to data collection and reporting, transforming data quality through ongoing engagement.

2 The sustainability data challenge To implement effective sustainability strategies, adopt good governance practices and ensure regulatory compliance, organisations are increasingly required to collect, manage and report on a wide array of sustainability data. This creates multiple challenges: Data sources, quality, format and availability can vary considerably Data collection and reporting periods can be monthly, quarterly, annual or multi-year Reporting must cover distinct, misaligned or overlapping time periods Conversions are needed to show total consumption, expenditure and emissions Other indicators may also be required (e.g. intensity ratios, base-year and benchmarks) Unsurprisingly, for many companies, effectively managing, collating and reporting their sustainability data can be a timeconsuming and resource-intensive process. The sustainability reporting landscape To ensure regulatory compliance and meet internal and external stakeholder requirements, companies must collect data for multiple resources across different time periods to meet a variety of reporting deadlines. RESOURCE DATA MUST SUPPORT MULTIPLE OUTPUTS, WITH DIFFERING REPORTING DEADLINES AND FREQUENCIES Mandatory GHG CRC ESOS CDP GRI CCA GGC EU ETS ISO 50001/14001 Annual Reports EU CSR 1 RESOURCE DATA COLLECTED FROM MULTIPLE SUPPLIERS WITH VARYING FORMATS AND ACCURACY LEVELS ENERGY Electricity Gas Delivered heat steam Other fuel consumption Renewable energy TRANSPORTATION Company vehicles Grey fleet Flights Rail travel OTHER RESOURCES EMISSIONS Water Waste Emissions (CO 2 e) Fugitive emissions (e.g. refrigerants) Other resources (e.g. paper) Supply chain 1 The requirements for EU CSR Reporting are not yet known as it is currently subject to a public consultation phase and is expected to come into effect in 2017

3 Our Smart Data service: getting sustainability data right At Carbon Smart, we believe that creating good quality, readily available and accessible data lies at the heart of any effective action on sustainability. Our Smart Data service allows clients to take control of their sustainability data, unlock new insights throughout the reporting cycle and significantly reduce the cost of compliance. The service combines the capabilities of our proprietary Smart Data platform, GreenGauge, with the expertise and knowledge of our consultants. Key benefits: End-to-end consultancy support Improved data collection and enhanced reporting outputs Tailored methodology, templates and training to increase data coverage and consistency Data estimation capabilities to mitigate against incomplete data Timely availability of sustainability data to meet multiple reporting deadlines Exception management to highlight data quality issues Configurable reporting capabilities for enhanced visibility and control Ability to influence outcomes during the reporting cycle Reduced staff costs for sustainability data collection The Smart Data service CLIENT ORGANISATION Internal 3 rd party suppliers FREQUENT, REGULAR OR AD HOC COLLATION FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES AND FORMATS ENHANCED DATA QUALITY COVERAGE IMPROVES OUTPUTS CONSULTANT - LED DATA COLLECTION SMART DATA PLATFORM Direct data input Conversion Client/supplier report upload Estimation Direct indirect engagement Extrapolation Data remediation refinement Benchmarking Backloading Correction Verification Audit PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS INCREASE AUTOMATION CONSULTANT - LED REPORTING Regular bespoke reports Dashboards Insight analysis Recommendation action plans Exception reports THE RIGHT INSIGHT FOR THE RIGHT AUDIENCE CLIENT ORGANISATION Board senior management Operational managers Compliance Internal Stakeholders Customers shareholdrs

4 Clients who have worked with us Carbon Smart has been supporting a broad range of organisations with their reporting and data management since We were appointed by Defra in 2012 to overhaul the online tool for greenhouse gas conversion factors for reporting, to make it more intuitive. Using our experience and expertise, we can tackle any reporting and data management challenge and lead organisations to excellence. Here are some examples of past and ongoing work: Achieving best practice in global reporting We set up a carbon reporting programme that developed their global reach and drove staff engagement across Europe, Asia and America. With our support, Lloyd s improved the accuracy and quality of their data for reporting. Over the past few years, Carbon Smart has been an invaluable resource in helping us to engage with our international office network both to improve the breadth and quality of our environmental reporting and also to engage our offices around the world on sustainability issues Michaele Hawkins, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, Lloyd s Award worthy carbon reporting Carbon Smart worked with global media giant Dentsu Aegis to provide their global GHG reporting over the last 5 years. This includes: US, China, UK, Australia, Spain, Germany and South Africa. In 2011 Dentsu Aegis won the ICSA Hermes Transparency in Governance Awards - Best Sustainability and Stakeholder Disclosure in a FTSE250 company. With the help of Carbon Smart we significantly increased the percentage of offices reporting and enhanced our score in the Carbon Disclosure Project to 90 (2014) Frank Krikhaar, Global CSR Manager, Dentsu Aegis Network Reporting excellence year on year Carbon Smart has worked for five years with this FTSE250 business, leading it to reporting excellence. Rathbones recently won the ICSA Transparency in Governance Awards, after being shortlisted three times. Carbon Smart s team provided us with invaluable advice Richard Loader, Company Secretary, Rathbones Ongoing data management for better results Carbon Smart works with the Home Office to collate, manage and analyse their energy consumption data, quantify the carbon impact of their immigration and core department services and manage their reporting commitments. The Home Office outsource carbon reporting data collection and management to Carbon Smart. They have helped us unify our data collection processes and support us with our multiple reporting obligations both internally and externally. Carbon Smart provides detailed insight into our data to allow us to forecast performance and focus on improving data quality. John Cole, Head of Sustainability, Home Office Effective reporting for leading targets Carbon Smart has helped Dimension Data deploy a global solution for reporting and greenhouse gas emissions data based on a Carbon Smart selection of software. The global ICT leader has set worldleading sustainability targets with our support. Navigating the reporting landscape We worked with Domino s Pizza Group to successfully manage their complex reporting obligations across a challenging estate, enabling great improvements in the quality of their reporting.

5 There is no sustainability without well-managed data Aleksandra Kozlowska For a growing number of businesses, sustainability is increasingly considered a core part of their strategy. According to McKinsey 1, CEOs were twice as likely in 2014 to prioritise sustainability as they were in Whilst organisations vary in how they interpret sustainability, from addressing environmental issues to action on social risks or ensuring regulatory compliance, it is clear that sustainability has to be managed. By recognising the importance of good quality, readily available data, companies can maximise the potential returns associated with their action on sustainability. A smart approach to data management should consist of three elements: 1. Ensuring data coverage, relevance and quality 2. Establishing regular data maintenance and secure storage, to support verification and audit 3. Converting sustainability data into valuable information. Together, these elements provide the foundations for effectively managing corporate sustainability. You get out what you put in In an age where information is already abundant, any data stored and managed should have a clearly defined purpose. A good sustainability management system will focus on what is relevant to the business and necessary to achieve the required outcomes. It will also assess the quality of stored data and seek to improve it. Whatever the intended purpose of collecting sustainability data to support decision making, measure performance or report progress the end result can only ever be as good as the data used to achieve it. Managing data is a continuous process Sustainability is an ongoing endeavour. Between collecting sustainability data and producing the required output, the data needs to be carefully looked after. Data maintenance means verifying the data and ensuring secure storage to support future comparisons, but it also goes further than that. Good sustainability data management should also highlight potential problems and anomalies throughout the collection process and make recommendations for improvement. All issues should be logged and explained to create a robust audit trail. Understanding sustainability data creates value Adopting an effective management approach converts sustainability data into valuable information, delivering real business benefits in a variety of ways: Enabling the identification of trends Highlighting risks and opportunities Supporting companies in setting meaningful and measurable targets Providing clear metrics for assessing the performance of sustainability initiatives Reducing reporting and compliance costs, by distributing effort across the reporting period. Benefits you can measure Sustainability performance is inherently linked to financial performance and companies should be no less diligent in their approach towards managing sustainability data. An effective data management strategy that ensures data quality through regular collation and process improvement enhances the quality of final outputs and reduces the cost of sustainability reporting and compliance. By being smart about sustainability data, companies can create value throughout the reporting cycle. Aleksandra Kozlowska is an Analyst at Carbon Smart. Aleksandra works within the Smart Data team on data collection and management. Her work focuses on processing and analysing sustainability data as part of wider projects. She has a Masters degree in environmental modelling from UCL. aleksandra.kozlowska@carbonsmart.co.uk +44 (0) McKinsey, Sustainability s strategic worth: McKinsey Global Survey results, July 2014

6 Contact us to improve the quality and value of your sustainability data: take control, unlock new insights and reduce the cost of reporting and compliance. 3rd floor, Farringdon House, Farringdon Rd, London, EC1R 3BU +44 (0) Copyright Carbon Smart Ltd