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ESG data collection is often the slowest part of sustainability reporting, because the data never arrives in the right shape. Every platform asks you to fit your data into its template, but the files organisations actually work from look nothing like it: a purchase ledger from a finance system, a supplier export, a utility report built by someone else. Before anything can be uploaded, someone spends an afternoon reshaping a spreadsheet by hand, and only finds out whether they got it right at the end.
At a recent roundtable on AI and sustainability reporting, the message was clear: data collection, not AI capability, is the biggest barrier to using AI in sustainability reporting. That is the problem we set out to solve at KEY ESG, the AI-powered sustainability data platform for companies and investors.
AI data ingestion lets you upload a spreadsheet in the format you already have and have the platform turn it into structured, usable data for you. KEY ESG's AI Bulk Import, launched in beta in [month] 2026, lets organisations upload ESG data in any spreadsheet format and turns it into structured, validated data, with every change reviewed before import. KEY ESG reads your file, works out which of your columns feed which of ours, fills in the import template, and suggests how to clean any values that don't yet match what the platform needs.
Here's how it compares with a traditional template upload:
- Manual template upload: reshape the file, map columns by hand, fix invalid values one by one, and discover errors at upload.
- AI Bulk Import: upload the original file, review suggested mappings, preview and apply suggested fixes, and import with full traceability.
AI Bulk Import sits alongside the existing template upload rather than replacing it. Teams whose data already arrives in a clean, consistent format can keep using the route that works for them.
AI Bulk Import works in four steps, and you can see exactly what it has done at every stage before anything is imported.
- Read the file. KEY ESG reads your spreadsheet and reports back what it found: how many rows, how many columns and what they contain, in your own terms. You can check this against the file on your desk without knowing anything about the platform.
- Map the data. It matches your columns to the fields KEY ESG needs and fills in the template. Where it applies a default rather than a value from your file, for example for entity, period or currency, it tells you.
- Review and clean. Any values that don't match what the platform accepts are highlighted. Where it can, KEY ESG suggests a fix, and you preview the proposed values in the cells before choosing whether to apply them.
- Import. Once you're happy, the data is imported, with a clear summary of rows added and rows skipped, and the option to revert.
AI data ingestion is accurate and auditable when AI writes the extraction code and people approve every cleaning change, which is how AI Bulk Import is designed. AI plays two distinct roles, and they carry different levels of certainty.
- Extracting the data. AI writes deterministic code that pulls the relevant data from your file. The AI does not handle your values directly at this stage, and every value extracted is checked to confirm it traces back to an identical value in your spreadsheet. You can click any row to see exactly where it came from.
- Cleaning the data. Here the AI makes suggestions, which your team reviews. Suggestions draw only on the context in your own spreadsheet and on mappings your team has already made. Nothing is applied automatically, and where the AI isn't confident enough, it makes no suggestion at all rather than guessing. Those values are listed so they can be cleaned by hand.
Every suggested change is shown to your team before it is applied, so incorrect suggestions can be rejected at the review stage rather than corrected after import.
AI powered ESG data collection can benefit many different people across your organisation as it can help improve both the speed and accuracy of reporting. It delivers the most value where data arrives at volume and in formats nobody controls. Typical examples include:
- Spend and activity data. A sustainability lead receives thousands of lines of purchase ledger data from finance, with item descriptions written the way the buyer typed them. Instead of an afternoon of copy and paste, it becomes an upload, a check and a set of suggested mappings to review.
- Onboarding historical data. Getting the first year of data in is the hardest part of adopting any platform. AI Bulk Import shortens it, and because suggestions draw on mappings your team has already made, it becomes more useful over time.
- Collecting from many sources. Whether it's a corporate group gathering data from sites and subsidiaries, or an investor collecting from portfolio companies, files rarely arrive in the same layout twice. AI Bulk Import absorbs those differences instead of pushing them back onto the person collecting the data.
It also helps wherever the people providing data sit outside the sustainability team, in finance, facilities or site management, who are not familiar with sustainability categories and can benefit from an AI supporting the translation from existing spreadsheets into the KEY ESG system.
Your data stays yours, and every AI action is recorded. KEY ESG does not use your data to train models or share it beyond your environment. All AI processing runs through AWS Bedrock with VPC-secured connections, so data does not leave our network.
For assurance, the audit trail records when a source file has been extracted using AI, and again wherever an AI suggestion for cleaning a value has been applied. You can always trace where AI has touched a value, which makes it straightforward to show an auditor that a person reviewed the data.
Does AI Bulk Import replace our existing template process?
No. Both routes sit on the same screen. If your data already arrives in the template format, you can keep using that route. AI Bulk Import is there for the files that don't fit.
What types of ESG data can AI Bulk Import handle?
AI Bulk Import handles table-based ESG data such as spend data, purchase ledgers, supplier exports, and utility and activity data, in Excel and CSV files.
What are the file limits?
AI Bulk Import supports files up to 25 MB and 30,000 rows. It currently covers bulk uploads for table-based questions, where data is entered as rows. Support for further import types is on the roadmap.
What does the Beta label mean?
Beta means the import route is fully built and supported, but new, and we are still learning how it handles the full variety of real-world files. How your data is treated does not change: every value is traced back to the source file, nothing changes without your review, and every AI change is recorded in the audit trail.
Is our data used to train AI models?
No. KEY ESG does not use your data to train models or share it beyond your environment.
KEY ESG is an AI-powered sustainability data platform for companies and investors. It helps corporates, investment firms and their portfolio companies collect, validate and report sustainability data, from reading source documents to producing reports aligned with global frameworks and regulations, including CSRD, ISSB, GRI, UK SRS, SFDR, EDCI and more. AI Bulk Import is the latest step in making ESG data collection faster, more traceable and easier for everyone who contributes to it.
If getting data into your reporting platform takes longer than reporting on it, AI Bulk Import could be a timesaver for your team. Book a demo to see it in action.
ESG data collection is often the slowest part of sustainability reporting, because the data never arrives in the right shape. Every platform asks you to fit your data into its template, but the files organisations actually work from look nothing like it: a purchase ledger from a finance system, a supplier export, a utility report built by someone else. Before anything can be uploaded, someone spends an afternoon reshaping a spreadsheet by hand, and only finds out whether they got it right at the end.
At a recent roundtable on AI and sustainability reporting, the message was clear: data collection, not AI capability, is the biggest barrier to using AI in sustainability reporting. That is the problem we set out to solve at KEY ESG, the AI-powered sustainability data platform for companies and investors.
AI data ingestion lets you upload a spreadsheet in the format you already have and have the platform turn it into structured, usable data for you. KEY ESG's AI Bulk Import, launched in beta in [month] 2026, lets organisations upload ESG data in any spreadsheet format and turns it into structured, validated data, with every change reviewed before import. KEY ESG reads your file, works out which of your columns feed which of ours, fills in the import template, and suggests how to clean any values that don't yet match what the platform needs.
Here's how it compares with a traditional template upload:
- Manual template upload: reshape the file, map columns by hand, fix invalid values one by one, and discover errors at upload.
- AI Bulk Import: upload the original file, review suggested mappings, preview and apply suggested fixes, and import with full traceability.
AI Bulk Import sits alongside the existing template upload rather than replacing it. Teams whose data already arrives in a clean, consistent format can keep using the route that works for them.
AI Bulk Import works in four steps, and you can see exactly what it has done at every stage before anything is imported.
- Read the file. KEY ESG reads your spreadsheet and reports back what it found: how many rows, how many columns and what they contain, in your own terms. You can check this against the file on your desk without knowing anything about the platform.
- Map the data. It matches your columns to the fields KEY ESG needs and fills in the template. Where it applies a default rather than a value from your file, for example for entity, period or currency, it tells you.
- Review and clean. Any values that don't match what the platform accepts are highlighted. Where it can, KEY ESG suggests a fix, and you preview the proposed values in the cells before choosing whether to apply them.
- Import. Once you're happy, the data is imported, with a clear summary of rows added and rows skipped, and the option to revert.
AI data ingestion is accurate and auditable when AI writes the extraction code and people approve every cleaning change, which is how AI Bulk Import is designed. AI plays two distinct roles, and they carry different levels of certainty.
- Extracting the data. AI writes deterministic code that pulls the relevant data from your file. The AI does not handle your values directly at this stage, and every value extracted is checked to confirm it traces back to an identical value in your spreadsheet. You can click any row to see exactly where it came from.
- Cleaning the data. Here the AI makes suggestions, which your team reviews. Suggestions draw only on the context in your own spreadsheet and on mappings your team has already made. Nothing is applied automatically, and where the AI isn't confident enough, it makes no suggestion at all rather than guessing. Those values are listed so they can be cleaned by hand.
Every suggested change is shown to your team before it is applied, so incorrect suggestions can be rejected at the review stage rather than corrected after import.
AI powered ESG data collection can benefit many different people across your organisation as it can help improve both the speed and accuracy of reporting. It delivers the most value where data arrives at volume and in formats nobody controls. Typical examples include:
- Spend and activity data. A sustainability lead receives thousands of lines of purchase ledger data from finance, with item descriptions written the way the buyer typed them. Instead of an afternoon of copy and paste, it becomes an upload, a check and a set of suggested mappings to review.
- Onboarding historical data. Getting the first year of data in is the hardest part of adopting any platform. AI Bulk Import shortens it, and because suggestions draw on mappings your team has already made, it becomes more useful over time.
- Collecting from many sources. Whether it's a corporate group gathering data from sites and subsidiaries, or an investor collecting from portfolio companies, files rarely arrive in the same layout twice. AI Bulk Import absorbs those differences instead of pushing them back onto the person collecting the data.
It also helps wherever the people providing data sit outside the sustainability team, in finance, facilities or site management, who are not familiar with sustainability categories and can benefit from an AI supporting the translation from existing spreadsheets into the KEY ESG system.
Your data stays yours, and every AI action is recorded. KEY ESG does not use your data to train models or share it beyond your environment. All AI processing runs through AWS Bedrock with VPC-secured connections, so data does not leave our network.
For assurance, the audit trail records when a source file has been extracted using AI, and again wherever an AI suggestion for cleaning a value has been applied. You can always trace where AI has touched a value, which makes it straightforward to show an auditor that a person reviewed the data.
Does AI Bulk Import replace our existing template process?
No. Both routes sit on the same screen. If your data already arrives in the template format, you can keep using that route. AI Bulk Import is there for the files that don't fit.
What types of ESG data can AI Bulk Import handle?
AI Bulk Import handles table-based ESG data such as spend data, purchase ledgers, supplier exports, and utility and activity data, in Excel and CSV files.
What are the file limits?
AI Bulk Import supports files up to 25 MB and 30,000 rows. It currently covers bulk uploads for table-based questions, where data is entered as rows. Support for further import types is on the roadmap.
What does the Beta label mean?
Beta means the import route is fully built and supported, but new, and we are still learning how it handles the full variety of real-world files. How your data is treated does not change: every value is traced back to the source file, nothing changes without your review, and every AI change is recorded in the audit trail.
Is our data used to train AI models?
No. KEY ESG does not use your data to train models or share it beyond your environment.
KEY ESG is an AI-powered sustainability data platform for companies and investors. It helps corporates, investment firms and their portfolio companies collect, validate and report sustainability data, from reading source documents to producing reports aligned with global frameworks and regulations, including CSRD, ISSB, GRI, UK SRS, SFDR, EDCI and more. AI Bulk Import is the latest step in making ESG data collection faster, more traceable and easier for everyone who contributes to it.
If getting data into your reporting platform takes longer than reporting on it, AI Bulk Import could be a timesaver for your team. Book a demo to see it in action.
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