2016 ReScore Pain Points Study

Context

Sustainability reporting is increasing in popularity and in complexity.  Whether companies have a sustainability team in place or EHS, Communications, HR and Compliance departments that share responsibility for reporting, it is challenging to effectively collect, consolidate, analyze and communicate data that reflects sustainability performance. ReScore Group undertook this study to understand -- based on empirical proofs -- the major “pain points” sustainability practitioners encounter with reporting. The study is based on survey responses received from 56 global companies from various industry sectors (Manufacturing, Food, Chemicals, Logistics, Energy, Aviation, Finance, Resorts, Packaging, Apparel, Health) and of different sizes (from $3M to >$20Bn of revenue) and nine in-depth interviews.

​The most significant take-away from this study is that companies don’t have a single or simply way to manage their sustainability reporting. The majority of companies report only on environmental issues with few reporting on governance, labor, local communities, and compliance. The most common reporting framework is GRI.  Most survey participants respond to CDP Climate Change Program or CDP Supply Chain Program due to client requests.


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    Key Findings

  • 36% of respondents use Excel with the support of email and SharePoint systems while 49% use a mix of solutions such as Excel, safety software, reporting software etc. 15% of the sample use specialized sustainability reporting software for everything.
  • Three major pain points identified:
  1. Growing number of frameworks and stakeholders requests
  2. Tracking  information flow
  3. Consolidating data
  • Audit and assurance not yet a common practice: 46% of the respondents are not going through an internal or external audit process, 24% have an internal audit process while 30% are audited and/or assured by an independent third-party.
  • Growing monitoring of sustainability performance through the supply chain but organization are rarely using this information and/or reporting about it.