Constellation ShortList™ Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Reporting

Organizations are establishing policies to address environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns. The “E” policies are emerging in response to international treaties and regulations as well as the concerns of the general public, customers, and business partners. Firms are also forging policies to protect workers and communities and to ensurworkforce diversity, equity and inclusion. Tens of thousands of firms around the globe have made “E” and “S” commitments, and they’re adding governance measures to enforce their goals.

Today ESG commitments are mostly voluntary, but regulatory bodies such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and standards bodies such as the IFRS Foundation and its International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) are in the process of establishing comprehensive and consistent ESG-related standards. ESG reporting solutions address the need to efficiently gather ESG-related data and to analyze and report on that information comprehensively and consistently using leading reporting frameworks aimed at a range of stakeholders, including prospective and existing shareholders, employees, and customers; analysts and fund managers; the media and general public; and non-executive board members.

Workiva has been added to the 2023 list on the strength of its work with XBRL US and major systems integrators to advance and ease sustainability reporting.  

Threshold Criteria

Constellation considers the following criteria for these solutions:

• Facilitates formal data-gathering and data-management processes and approvals for those involved in ESG-related reporting, including dedicated ESG teams, finance, corporate communications, human resources, facilities management, supply chain teams, marketing, and other operational units.
• Offers prebuilt integrations with popular data sources, including enterprise applications, databases, and operational control technologies.
• Automates, where possible, data-gathering, reporting, and disclosure processes to improve efficiency, ensure consistency, and minimize errors tied to manual data entry.
• Eases and/or automates the identification of financially material ESG issues and risks.
• Provides prebuilt workflows, report templates, and dashboards that can be customized.
• Facilitates reporting using multiple frameworks and standards and using consistent data to report to multiple stakeholders. Important frameworks include the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Task Force on Carbon-Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), and the U.N. Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).
• Speeds and eases disclosure via support for familiar publishing tools (Word, PowerPoint, PDF, HTML) and extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) filing mandates.
• Ensures auditability of data and reports.