Strategic Focus: Delivering Investor-Grade ESG Data
Lily Turnbull
Kim Knickle
Access this research
Access all Corporate Sustainability Leaders content with a strategic subscription or buy this single report
Need help or have a question about this report? Contact us for assistance
Executive Summary
The ESG and sustainability data landscape is rapidly evolving as data requirements become more complex and stakeholder pressure mounts. Investor-grade ESG data will be vital for ensuring ESG regulatory compliance, enhancing investor confidence and maintaining the integrity of financial markets. This report considers the key characteristics of investor-grade ESG data and leverages insights from the recent Verdantix ESG and sustainability global corporate survey, which reveals that firms are struggling to provide reliable, accurate ESG data. Drawing on these insights, this report explores best practices for enabling investor-grade data, covering organizational process changes, personnel capabilities and technology investment.Providing investor-grade ESG data proves to be a challenge
Best practices to deliver investor-grade ESG data
Create a culture of accountability
Develop a robust ESG controls framework
Establish an ESG information architecture
Figure 2. Characteristics of investor-grade data
Figure 3. Confidence in ability to provide investor-grade data
Figure 4. Software penetration across a variety of ESG use cases
Figure 5. Best practices to deliver investor-grade ESG data
Figure 6. Designing robust internal controls for investor-grade ESG data
About the Authors
Lily Turnbull
Senior Analyst
Lily is a Senior Analyst at Verdantix, where she delivers in-depth research to help executives navigate ESG, sustainability and product innovation, and make confident decision...
Kim Knickle
Research Director
Kim Knickle is a Research Director at Verdantix, bringing more than two decades of analyst experience to the evolving world of sustainability. Her current research spans ESG a...
Other related content
Global supply chain volatility is forcing sustainability and procurement leaders to rethink how they balance resilience with sustainability commitments. Join Verdantix analysts El...
Upcoming / 22 October, 2026
Most organisations know energy flexibility is coming. Far fewer have a clear view of what it means for their specific assets, operations and markets, or how to build a credible bus...
Upcoming / 29 September, 2026
Product sustainability is becoming a condition of market access. Regulations including the EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), the US Uyghur Forced Labor Preve...
14 September, 2026
The sustainability market is shifting fast – and not always in the direction anyone expected. Regulatory rollbacks and expansions, geopolitical realignment, and tightening budgets ...
08 September, 2026
Utilities are managing billing, CRM, customer engagement and DER operations across separate systems designed for a one-way energy model, which is now expiring. In the UK, National ...
03 September, 2026
The reporting burden has shifted. So has the opportunity. CSRD, ESRS, and a growing wave of global assurance requirements have pulled sustainability data into the same governance m...
17 September, 2026