Monitoring and reporting your organization’s environmental impacts is nothing if not time consuming. Which is why, as more governments around the world implement mandatory climate disclosures, demand for technology to streamline the process has been steadily increasing.
With this in mind, join us as we take a deep dive into environmental reporting software. You’ll learn more about the various reporting tools available, explore key features and functionality, and find out how it can contribute to your sustainability program.
What’s more, we also highlight how the right software solutions go further; helping you reduce costs, identify risks, and build resilience, to ensure that sustainability needn’t come at the cost of profitability. But first, what exactly is environmental reporting?
what is environmental reporting?
First and foremost, environmental reporting is the process of collecting, monitoring, and analyzing data on your organization’s environmental impacts and disclosing that information to stakeholders, government agencies, and other interested parties. This can include information on:
- GHG emissions
- Waste management
- Water usage
- Energy efficiency
- Climate change
- Biodiversity
- Air and water quality
- Deforestation
Its purpose is to promote transparency and accountability and to encourage organizations to take steps to reduce their environmental impact. By collecting and reporting environmental data, you can take the first step toward making your operations more sustainable and environmentally friendly, providing a starting point for your sustainability journey.
In addition to this, environmental reporting can help stakeholders make informed decisions about the organizations they support or do business with. Making your environmental data readily available to stakeholders demonstrates a commitment to sharing and achieving your sustainability goals.
But environmental reporting is also increasingly mandatory in different jurisdictions as a means of holding businesses accountable for their impacts on the environment. This means more organizations will need to start collecting and accurately reporting their environmental data immediately.
what is environmental reporting software?
In essence, environmental reporting software helps you do more with your data, allowing you to track your environmental performance, comply with regulations, and communicate your sustainability efforts to stakeholders.
In order to achieve these goals, the software records various environmental indicators such as air quality, water usage, waste generation, and carbon emissions. It can also generate reports and visualizations to help decision-makers and stakeholders understand the data and make informed choices about sustainability initiatives and the company overall.
Some environmental reporting software can also automate manual processes such as data collection, simplifying emissions calculations, progress tracking and more with built-in APIs, emission factor libraries, and dynamic communication tools.
who uses environmental reporting software?
Organizations of every size and in every geography and industry use software to track environmental data for their company including:
- Agriculture and food production
- Automotive manufacturing
- Consumer goods
- Cybersecurity
- Engineering and construction
- Finance and investment
- Government
- Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals
- Hospitality
- Oil and gas
- Retail
- Transportation and shipping
why is environmental reporting important?
At first glance, the primary reason for environmental reporting is regulatory compliance. With governments around the globe increasingly mandating environmental disclosures, it has been critical for businesses to focus on reporting relevant data in order to avoid possible financial repercussions.
Environmental reporting is also a key part of attracting and retaining investment. Disclosing information about your environmental performance can be key to building trust with both customers and investors, enhancing the reputation of your business and improving its competitive advantage.
But focusing on your organization’s environmental impacts goes far beyond appearances. Environmental reporting can also help businesses identify key opportunities to reduce environmental risks, identify efficiencies and improvements, and drive profitability. That means effective environmental reporting is an essential component for those businesses that want to operate not just legally and responsibly, but also sustainably.
how environmental reporting software can benefit your business
Implementing a software solution to support environmental reporting can bring multiple benefits for your business. Here are some of the ways it can help:
Compliance
Environmental reporting software streamlines the process of collecting and organizing environmental data from across different departments, offices, factories, and other facilities. Having information available in one centralized platform makes it easier to ensure you’re complying with relevant regulations and standards and reduces the risk of penalties or legal issues. Your sustainability team, employees, and stakeholders can access this information when compiling sustainability reports for different reporting frameworks, or when evaluating progress toward environmental-related goals.
Transparency
By making this information more accessible to stakeholders such as investors, customers and communities, environmental reporting software improves both transparency and accountability. It also enhances accuracy because every calculation, data point and change is tracked and recorded in the system. This auditability can also help boost your reputation as a socially responsible business, which in turn attracts customers, employees, and investors who prioritize sustainability.
Efficiency
Software tools make the reporting process significantly easier and more efficient with automated functionality. This in turn saves time and resources, but environmental reporting software can also help you identify areas where you can improve overall business efficiency. Reducing your environmental impact can lead to cost savings and optimizations that improve the sustainability of your organization. By identifying patterns and trends in the data, software allows for more informed decision-making and targeted improvements.
key features of environmental reporting software
Environmental reporting software typically includes a range of features to assist users in tracking, managing, and reporting environmental data. Some common features include:
- Data Collection and Management: The ability to collect and store data from various sources, such as APIs, surveys, file uploads, or manual inputs.
- Voluntary Reporting: Many programs include tools for generating reports to help users communicate their findings to stakeholders.
- Compliance Reporting: Built-in capabilities to ensure compliance with regulations like the US Environment Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
- Data Analytics: Tools to analyze environmental data, identifying trends and patterns, and tracking data sources and data points for auditability.
Overall, the goal of environmental reporting software is to provide organizations with the tools they need to make informed decisions about their environmental impact and to communicate that impact to others.
other types of environmental reporting software
When reviewing your options, it’s important to recognize that there are in fact several types of software designed to manage environmental impact reporting. Below are a few examples of software with environmental reporting capabilities.
Carbon accounting software or carbon emissions management software
Carbon accounting software or carbon emissions management software help organizations to calculate and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by compiling operational data like fuel combustion for operations, process, or comfort heat, as well as other sources of GHG emissions such as those in their supply chain or from an investment portfolio. This type of software only handles GHG emissions and doesn’t manage other environmental factors.
ESG reporting software
ESG reporting software helps streamline ESG data collection and calculate impacts through the various metrics included in ESG standards and frameworks. ESG software includes a whole host of elements under the umbrellas of environment, social, and governance.
The environmental component of ESG reporting includes carbon emissions, in addition to things like waste management and water stewardship, while the social aspect covers concerns issues like DEI, human rights, community relations, and other social factors. The governance component tracks metrics like executive compensation, and auditing procedures. ESG reporting software is more comprehensive standard environmental reporting software.
Sustainability software
Sustainability software combines the best of environmental reporting software and ESG software to allow organizations to monitor, manage, and evaluate their various impacts through data obtained from their business operations. It enables an organization to manage its entire sustainability program, not just carbon emissions. Like ESG software, sustainability software is a more comprehensive solution that enables organizations to go beyond environmental reporting to tracking, managing, and reporting all their sustainability efforts and progress.
Your goals, resources, and budget will determine which of the above will be the best fit for your organization. The aim when selecting a technology solution is to ensure that it makes reporting easier for your organization with a simple, and easy-to-use interface that supports your program and empowers users across your organization.
environmental reporting’s role in sustainability
For some, environmental reporting and sustainability reporting are one and the same. Despite being an important element of sustainability programs, however, environmental impacts are only one part of overall sustainability. In fact, it can be equally material to your organization’s success to address other aspects of sustainability such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), or organizational governance.
For this reason, organizations need to embrace environmental reporting as part of their overall sustainability strategy, but also not let it take all the focus. A balanced approach is necessary to work toward having truly sustainable, environmentally friendly, and socially responsible operations that go beyond general compliance and instead position your organization as a sustainability leader.
AMCS calls this approach Performance Sustainability, helping future-focused organizations take control with software solutions that ensure sustainability drives performance. Our ESG Solution helps manage all aspects of your sustainability program, including environmental, social, and governance reporting and beyond, on one secure, centralized, cloud-based platform.
To find out more about how AMCS can help you meet your environmental reporting and sustainability needs, speak with one of our experts today.