Asia is home to 60% of the world’s population and is the largest carbon emitter, accounting for 52% of global emissions. The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) is just around the corner. Governments and organisations in Asia are expected to explain their progress on the sustainability targets they had committed – and for good reason.
Unsurprisingly, this impetus is not new. Many businesses are defending their climate-change credentials to shake off accusations of ‘greenwashing’ and performative corporate activism.
These concerns are valid, with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations playing a significant role in determining business success. This includes all aspects of a business – pitching potential investors, making procurement decisions, and informing consumer habits. The ability to shape consumer habits is compelling, as a recent study by PwC showed that 80% of consumers were more likely to buy from a company that actively stands up for the environment through their work.
Increase transparency and standards of sustainability targets’ reporting
To attract both customers and talent, it is increasingly imperative for businesses to prove their commitment to ESG. The solution lies in data–tracking various metrics to demonstrate their impact on the environment and society around them.
Such reporting information is on the rise. A recent KPMG study noted that 80% of the world’s largest organisations now provide some form of sustainability reporting, up from 13% in 1993.
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For all the corporate reporting in the world, a lack of standardised metrics between businesses means that the data collected risks falling on deaf ears. If that intelligence is specific to an organisation, how much can it make sense to its target customers, employees, investors and regulators? Without such standards – and the ability to understand said data – ESG metrics risk being branded as the next wave of corporate jargon.
This isn’t just an external issue, either. Despite increased ESG reporting, PwC also reported that 37% of business leaders highlighted a lack of standards (along with regulatory complexity) as a significant barrier to ESG growth. Moreover, for all the generated data available to share with key stakeholders, the businesses reporting it often don’t know what it means or how they should be presenting it.
Invest in data literacy for the people and the planet
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The latest research from Qlik showed that, despite the significant increase in the use of data in every aspect of business, just 24% of the global workforce claimed to be fully confident in their ability to read, work with, analyse, and argue with data.
Understanding ESG data can drive decision-making with major ramifications for people and the planet. At the highest level, it contributes to decisions that inform major goals and targets, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is where global ESG data reporting standards come in – if corporate emissions targets might have been slightly nebulous, we now have the opportunity to align businesses with the international bodies driving change. And it all starts with a complete understanding of our available information.
One of the main focuses has been the collective goal of limiting the rise in average temperature to 1.5 degrees. To achieve this, the United Nations (UN) combines internal travel data from external aviation sources and analyses this information to calculate and monitor CO2 emissions from travel. This enables accurate reporting and makes data easily accessible to the travel department, reducing future environmental impact while supporting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
With a better understanding of data and the ability to see the narrative in the intelligence, companies are in a much stronger position to align their activities with global goals and, crucially, make decisions that have a tangible impact.
For an effective analysis of ESG metrics, we can align ESG goals with traditional business priorities such as revenue growth and profitability metrics through data. Analysing emissions from air travel, for example, is not only an environmental necessity to achieve “net zero” but can also support a business priority to reduce expenses related to non-essential travel to positively impact the bottom line. Therefore, the role of data literacy and the function of data integration will be essential for businesses to achieve ESG targets and business objectives to serve all stakeholders, including employees, communities, investors, shareholders, and our planet.
The onus of businesses to build a sustainable world
To accurately convey ESG data, each business needs to be able to present it in a user-friendly manner. By doing so, all stakeholders can work with data to align and activate efforts to operate more sustainably. For example, transparently developing real scenarios and simulations means that everyone can understand critical actions organisations must take.
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That’s the key – making data consumable by everyday users. It can be detailed or even the result of complex calculations based on multiple sources. But empowering employees to self-serve and use the resulting intelligence to support their roles, rather than stopping what they are doing to decipher vast volumes of information, can have a significant impact – particularly in an area subject to little tracking and reporting.
Incorporating sustainability is no longer an option but an imperative. It is urgent that both governments and businesses play their part and are serious about the environment we take for granted. This means ditching unrealistic sustainability targets based on ‘gut feelings’ for something more tangible and concrete.
For example, a supermarket chain in Australia, Woolworths, reduces food waste through improved inventory management. Its data management systems can now provide better information about individual stores and products, creating opportunities to reduce the waste of perishable goods through the precise timing of product markdowns. This is actively reducing the environmental impact of food waste while also making significant cost savings.
Organisations must employ a data-first approach and put data at the heart of eco-initiatives and sustainability targets. In doing so, firms can understand how their business practices impact the environment, and business leaders can identify areas for improvement and communicate this clearly to all key stakeholders.
By leveraging data in this way, organisations can quickly grasp how they intend to enact change for the future whilst changing lives along the way.
Julie Kae is the VP of Sustainability and DE&I; as well as executive director of Qlik.org at Qlik
