Use RPA and IDP to automate sustainability reporting

Sustainability reporting has become a critical aspect of corporate governance, driven by increasing stakeholder demands for transparency and accountability. Unfortunately, the need to identify, collect, process, report and monitor large volumes of complex data can overwhelm even the most dedicated teams.

For example, according to a Deloitte survey, 57% of senior executives highlighted that data availability and quality remain their biggest impediment with respect to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data for disclosure.

Other challenges in sustainability reporting include:

• Aggregation of Data: Gathering consistent data from various business units is complex and prone to inconsistencies.

• Diverse Reporting Standards: Multiple reporting frameworks make it challenging to produce uniform and comprehensive reports.

• Stakeholder Expectations: Meeting the diverse demands of stakeholders for detailed and tailored disclosures.

• Staffing: Currently staffing levels are inadequate to meet the demands of increased ESG disclosures.

To address these challenges, many organizations are now turning to technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) to transform what has been hitherto a manual, time-consuming process.

Some of the ways where RPA and IDP can help to improve the efficiency and quality of the data management and reporting process include:

• Automating the collection of data from diverse sources, applications and systems (both internal and external)

• Extracting ESG data from a variety of document types, including structured, semi-structured and unstructured documents

• Compiling the ESG data into the required reporting formats and templates - Performing checks to identify and eliminate errors in data entry and calculation

• Tracking and reporting on progress against specific environment targets, e.g. carbon emissions

As companies continue to prioritize ESG objectives, leveraging technologies like RPA and IDP can go a long way to ensure that the data management and reporting process are themselves sustainable.

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