Microsoft has announced the expansion of its sustainability offerings with the launch of Project ESG Reporting, a new ESG reporting tool.
The new tool, currently in preview, enables organisations to collaboratively create voluntary and regulatory disclosure reports across a range of standards and frameworks, including:
- Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
- Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards (ASRS)
- Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) 1 and 2
- Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
- International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 1 and 2
- Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)
According to the giant, the tool also provides Microsoft Sustainability Manager integration for company profile and data points, workflow UI for task management and content approval, disclosure generation in Excel and extensibility for custom template creation.
In a post announcing the new product, Brandon Potter, Director for Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, said that the launch comes as organisations face challenges when reporting against numerous voluntary and regulatory reporting frameworks.
Indeed, Potter noted that there is no global standardisation in ESG reporting, which makes it “difficult to know what metrics to report and how to structure disclosures.”
“Accurate reporting plays a major role in helping companies reach their sustainability goals, providing a bridge between where they are and where they aspire to be,” said Potter, adding: “With the new project ESG reporting (preview) tool, organizations can streamline the reporting process by collaborating on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards and frameworks at the same time.”
The tech company also announced updates to its Microsoft Sustainability Manager, including the addition of data trail capabilities. These capabilities cover the entire data lifecycle, providing a trail across different time periods and organisational hierarchies.
The update also includes alternate emissions features to enable organisations to quantify their emissions using diverse calculation methodologies.
