Companies will have to meet increasingly onerous requirements for sustainability including reporting on climate-related information. This requires dramatically improving the integrity and quality of internal sustainability data processes and systems. But that is not all. Collecting the external sustainability data, for example from suppliers, is usually the biggest challenge. A new, market-led, non-profit initiative offers a solution.
ABN AMRO, Signify and Visma have jointly initiated the ESG Clearing House. The ESG Clearing House enables companies, their suppliers and their capital providers to exchange standardized ESG data securely and reliably. Peer-to-peer, data point by data point and automated in high volumes. The following developments form the driving forces for starting this important initiative.
1. Mandatory sustainability disclosures
European legislation, with support of European advisory group EFRAG (European Financial Reporting Advisory Committee), is pushing for a
far-reaching, detailed European standard for sustainability reporting. Internationally, ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board) is
coming up with a new, comprehensive standard for sustainability reporting.
2. Digital standardized format
In addition to a substantive standard, a digital standard will follow in both cases to facilitate the exchange of data. Europe is also committed to a central database where companies must file their standardized sustainability data, similar to the function that already exists for financial
data of companies in several jurisdictions.
3. Decision-useful information and data quality
Sustainability data is increasingly playing a crucial role in decision-making processes, in accountability and in public reports. The new European legislation focuses on completeness, comparability, reliability and timely availability of sustainability data. For this, companies are partly dependent on data from their suppliers and other business partners. Standardized data exchange of financial data has been happening for years and must now also be initiated for sustainability data.
ESG Clearing House is committed to the high-quality exchange of sustainability data between companies on a non-profit basis. Only then can companies reliably substantiate the story of long-term value creation, manage better on the basis of more complete, reliable insight and achieve longer-term value creation with their supply chain partners. That will give the quality of sustainability data a huge boost and will help support sustainability actions, such as emission reduction.
Companies will be able to provide and collect ESG data in a standardized format and share the benefits and costs of this data exchange platform among users in a non-profit model. Suppliers will be able to provide customers with the relevant ESG data on a peer-to-peer basis, gaining competitive advantages.
For investors and other capital providers, the ESG Clearing House will enable access to corporate ESG data directly from companies. Banks will be able to securely request ESG data on their loan book using common taxonomy standards.
Those interested in learning more about the ESG Clearing House can visit www.esgclearinghouse.org.