Microsoft has introduced a new Project ESG Reporting (Preview) tool designed to streamline the ESG reporting process. This tool facilitates simultaneous collaboration on various environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards and frameworks.
ESG reporting can be intricate and demanding due to the lack of global standardisation, which complicates metric reporting and disclosure structuring. Companies often struggle to navigate multiple voluntary and regulatory frameworks.
The Project ESG Reporting (Preview) tool addresses these challenges by enabling users to create, complete, and approve reports based on various ESG disclosure standards. It offers customisable templates, frameworks, and directives for both quantitative and qualitative metrics, which can be reused for future reports, simplifying the reporting process. The tool allows for flexible data input—from numeric values to rich text—creating comprehensive reports and providing precise insights into ESG performance. Users can also incorporate their own templates and utilise collaboration and approval workflows to improve data quality and consistency.
The solution focuses on multiple areas that simplify the challenges inherent in reporting, across industries. This includes reducing complexity, enhancing efficiency, and providing greater transparency.
Key features of these tools include a range of standard templates for ESG reporting, including CSRD, ASRS, BRSR 1 and 2, GRI, IFRS 1 and 2, and SASB, integration with Microsoft Sustainability Manager for company profiles and CSRD data, workflow UI for managing tasks and content approvals, disclosure generation in Excel and customisable template creation options.
At the same time, to enhance the value of sustainability data, Microsoft Sustainability Manager has been upgraded to include data trail capabilities. This feature tracks the entire data lifecycle—from ingestion to reconciliation—providing a detailed view of data flow, transformations, and calculations.
The major features of data trial capabilities are that they provide insight into data movement and changes, allow clear visibility into each stage of the data journey and provide improved data access, traceability, and auditability, building trust with auditors, investors, and stakeholders.
Also, the Microsoft Sustainability Manager has updated its emission factors library with new entries, namely National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) database integration for accurate emission factors and the Latest EPA emission factors for 2024, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards.