Salesforce Expands In ESG And Sustainability Market With New Automate ESG Reporting Solution

Salesforce Expands In ESG And Sustainability Market With New Automate ESG Reporting Solution

Salesforce announced the launch of Automate ESG Reporting, a new ESG data management and reporting solution, to help firms meet stakeholder demand for ESG transparency. The new solution will enable firms to integrate ESG data from different systems, manage and track progress in real time and easily generate framework specific reports. By streamlining and automating the reporting process, customers will be able to save time and reduce costs. The full ESG reporting product is expected to be publicly available in February 2023.

The new solution offers a wide range of ESG reporting in one place, leveraging the value of the Salesforce ecosystem. Automate ESG Reporting expands on Salesforce’s Net Zero Cloud solution by adding a new Compliance & Disclosure Hub to provide a more automated process for creating reports aligned to framework-specific ESG standards, such as the Global Reporting Initiative standards and CDP standards. The new solution will incorporate social and governance metrics, in addition to environmental metrics, into Net Zero Cloud. More new features include a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) dashboard capable of showing employee demographics and a new multi-organization carbon accounting capability that pulls carbon emissions data from a firm’s subsidiaries into a single instance on the platform.

ESG reporting has become a vital element in augmenting visibility and accountability as, according to the Verdantix Global Corporate Survey 2022: ESG & Sustainability Budgets, Priorities And Tech Preferences, around 64% of CEOs feel the pressure to increase ESG and sustainability commitments. However, ESG reporting continues to burden firms as a result of not-always-clear global reporting standards and inconsistent or unreliable data. Technology, such as Automate ESG Reporting, plays an important role in alleviating such pressure by elevating reporting capabilities and supporting assurance whereby data can be reported to third-party auditors.

The ESG reporting landscape is rapidly evolving with mandatory and voluntary integrated reporting on the rise as a result of regulatory drivers and stakeholder pressure. As the CSRD, ISSB and SEC proposals roll out, data collection and reporting processes need to be increasingly rigorous, particularly for assurance. Verdantix predicts that external assurance of ESG data will become an increasingly important spend priority within the next two years as firms seek to comply with assurance requirements of CSRD and eventually the SEC. ESG and sustainability software vendors, including Salesforce, have incorporated auditing tools within their platforms to support this process.

To learn more about ESG reporting and supporting software read the following reports: Strategic Focus: Integrating ESG Into Financial Disclosures, Global Corporate Survey 2022: ESG And Sustainability Software Brands Recognition and Strategic Focus: Transitioning To Investor-Grade ESG Data And Decision-Making.