from internal or external benchmarks into your strategy management to
help you identify opportunities to improve your business.
Better informed investment decisions
Reduced financial risk, stemming from reducing environmental and
health risks
Speed. Reporting requirements would be fulfilled more quickly
Flexibility. An automated solution meets immediate needs and remains
adaptable to future ones.
Discovering Why an Automated Solution Is Needed ...............................
The problem of manual, cumbersome sustainability reporting requires an
automated solution, and, the AMR study cited earlier indicates that the
market recognizes this as well, with the majority of companies in the US
and in the EU planning to invest in IT for sustainability between 2007 and
- In the next few sections, we explore some of the reasons an IT solution
is needed.
Sustainability reporting is a recurring problem .............................
Sustainability reporting is becoming an increasingly important part of doing
business. As it becomes more institutionalized, reporting requirements will
only increase. Companies need a solution that doesn’t have to be reinvented
again and again.
Companies are regularly asked for sustainability data by various parties: their
own executives, the press, NGOs, interest groups, and regulators. Under a
manual system, this information must be calculated again and again. With
an automated system, data is always up to date and can be gathered and
customized with a few clicks.
Huge amounts of data are involved .................................................
Sustainability reporting is complex and undoubtedly will become even more
so in the years ahead. It’s simply impractical to manage so much data without
a comprehensive solution. A solution must work across different business
260 Part IV: Managing the Flow of Information
