Sustainability reporting has moved from voluntary narrative to regulated disclosure. Under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, in-scope companies must obtain assurance over their sustainability information — and that changes the standard of evidence required.
Much ESG data still lives in spreadsheets maintained by a handful of experts, with estimates, manual adjustments and little documentation. That is precisely the environment in which control professionals know how to help.
Applying financial-reporting discipline
- Ownership: name an owner for each metric and its underlying data.
- Process mapping: trace each disclosed figure back to its source systems.
- Key controls: reconciliations, review controls and approvals at the points where errors would matter.
- Estimates and judgements: document methods and assumptions, and review them.
- IT controls: extend access and change controls to ESG tools and data platforms.
Scope and timelines for some EU sustainability rules are being revised, so check current requirements. The need for reliable sustainability data, however, is not going away.
