The Best Sustainability Management Tools You Should Consider for Your Organization

Corporate sustainability management has become a crucial component of how organizations manage greenhouse gasses (GHG) and comply with the growing list of related regulations. Also, companies have to track data on other sustainability parameters and risks, including waste, governance, and impact on society.

Then, they have to accurately report their efforts to stakeholders. With the concept of sustainability being relatively new, the question that managers keep asking is, “what is the best way to stay on top of ESG management and reporting?”  

The answer is to learn and use the right sustainability management tools or or ESG impact software. The tools are the new benchmarks in sustainability management, and make tracking data, analytics, and reporting easy and accurate.

The time needed to work on data for compliance or generating an ESG report is pretty short. This post digs deeper into sustainability management apps/ software to determine what they are, and the crucial features to look for in an ESG app. 

What are Sustainability Management Tools?

These are solutions or apps used by companies to manage environmental, social and governance (ESG) data they generate from their operations. The apps track climate, diversity, waste, biodiversity, and climate information with the aim of improving ESG performance.

Therefore, they are part of the sustainable solutions used by organizations for insights into reducing negative impacts or risks. For example, a good ESG tool / software helps in analyzing business challenges to reduce negative impacts. 

The tools help business / corporate leadership execute governance in different areas of sustainability. Therefore, they become central in helping you to accurately factor in the different requirements for ESG compliance with both the local laws and international best practices. 

Depending on your organization, the ESG or environmental, health, and safety (EHS) tools also come in handy in helping managers to work with the selected ESG framework.

Whether you want to use the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) or the Task-force for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the sustainability management tools will come in handy.

So, it is paramount to ensure you pick the right tool and use it to drive sustainability to the next level. 

What to Look for When Selecting a Sustainability Management 

While it is true that the environmental, health, and safety (EHS) and sustainability management tools niche is not new, the need for data accuracy has grown steadily. So, when looking for the right tools, here are the primary features to read and focus on keenly: 

• • Product Strength: When vetting an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) app, make sure to start with a review of its strength. Important things or benchmarks to help you determine the strength of sustainability management tools include historical performance, all round look, and rating by previous users on the market. 
  • Data Processing capability: A good app should help you to process most of the assessments or tasks relating to sustainability data management and compliance. Therefore, ensure that the app can accurately handle materiality assessments, incident management, waste management-related data, and supply chain emissions coverage, among others. 
  • Easy Integration with Your Management System: The purpose of sustainability management tools is to help managers effectively manage sustainability-related impact data. Therefore, check for programs that can integrate with your business or project system to be able to pick important information, such as financial details and staff appraisal. This means that the selected software solution will require less work to measure energy, water use, or other sustainable attributes and create top-notch reports. 

• Ease of Use: When looking for sustainability management apps for your organization or project, it should be pretty easy to use. As we indicated earlier, the chances are that ESG reporting of sustainability management will be done by an entire team. Therefore, the ESG tool or software should be pretty easy to use for the members. 

If there are specific complexities about the use of the app, perhaps because of advanced features, learning how to use the tool should be pretty easy. For example, can the team members easily calculate GHG emissions with the app? Some app solution developers even offer onboarding services to ensure their clients can optimally use their tools. 

• Highly Secure: Once you install an ESG app or tool into your company’s system, it is crucial to appreciate that it gains access to other business details, some of which can be pretty sensitive. Therefore, you should check for the apps that can help you to improve the sustainability of the company without raising the risk of attacks. So, check for key features such as restricted logins, regular updates, and good architecture before making the decision on the sustainability management tools or software to use. 

This post has demonstrated that for you to effectively manage your company’s sustainability, it is prudent to learn about sustainability and have an appropriate program.

A good app, such as Metrio, can help you not only simplify the process but also adhere to the principles of ESG reporting and compliance. Contact us now for more insights on sustainability applications and expert assistance.

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