The ESG Reporting Cycle
The stages of one reporting year, from planning to publication and review, and where each stage usually goes wrong.
11 min
Activities: 0 of 2
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting is not a document that someone writes in the last month of the year. It is a cycle that runs for the whole year. Organisations that treat it as a writing task at year end usually find the same problems: missing data, figures that nobody can explain, and a report that does not match what the company told its customers.
This course covers the whole cycle at a practical level. It assumes you will help to produce ESG information, not only read it. You will choose methods, check data, write disclosures and answer external requests, and you will need to defend each choice to a reviewer, an assurance provider or a customer.
One reporting year
- 1
Stage 1
Plan
Confirm the audience, the framework, the reporting period and the boundary. Review last year's findings from the assurance provider and from customers.
- 2
Stage 2
Assess materiality
Confirm or update the material topics. A full assessment is not needed every year, but a check for major changes is.
- 3
Stage 3
Collect data
Data owners send figures on an agreed calendar, often quarterly, with evidence attached.
- 4
Stage 4
Review and control
Check completeness, compare with last year, investigate large changes and approve each figure.
- 5
Stage 5
Write and assure
Draft the disclosures, agree the text with data owners, and give the assurance provider access to evidence.
- 6
Stage 6
Approve and publish
Senior approval, usually at board level, then publication and use of the same figures in questionnaires.
- 7
Stage 7
Learn
Record what went wrong and fix the process before the next cycle starts.
Worked example: a cycle that starts too late
A packaging company decided in January to publish its first sustainability report in March. The team asked sites for twelve months of electricity, fuel and waste data. Two sites had changed waste contractors in the middle of the year and had no records for the first six months. The fuel figures came from purchase invoices, but one site bought fuel for a sister company as well. The report was delayed by four months, and the waste figure was still published with an estimate.
The fix was simple but needed time: a quarterly data request, a named owner at each site, and a short definition for each figure. In the second year the team closed the data in three weeks.
Worked example: one figure, two answers
A logistics firm reported 12,400 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in its annual report. Two months later, its sales team answered a customer questionnaire with 10,900 tonnes, taken from an earlier draft. The customer noticed the difference during a supplier review. After that, the firm made one rule: every external answer must come from the approved, published data set.
Put the cycle in order
Arrange the stages of one reporting year from first to last.
- 1Confirm or update the material topics
- 2Collect data with evidence from data owners
- 3Review, compare with last year and approve figures
- 4Record lessons and fix the process
- 5Confirm audience, framework, period and boundary
- 6Draft disclosures and support the assurance provider
- 7Obtain senior approval and publish
A sales team wants to answer a customer questionnaire with a draft emissions figure because the report is not yet published. What is the best response?