.png "What is CSRD? A Guide to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive by Key ESG")
Over the past two years, sustainability reporting has undergone a decisive shift: quality, consistency, and auditability now sit at the top of the regulatory agenda.
Nowhere is that clearer than in the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Under the CSRD, firms must publish annual sustainability statements prepared in accordance with European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) and subject to third-party assurance.
Because the ESRS demands annual demonstration of reporting process, and because assurance providers must be able to verify every figure back to source, sustainability data must now be investor-grade: traceable, complete, and comparable.
Organisations without robust data aggregation processes risk encountering challenges in the review and sign-off phases of their sustainability reporting.
Against this backdrop, KEY ESG has introduced two features designed to make sustainability reporting auditable by design.
Feature 1: Real-time guardrails
When users input a metric – whether it’s energy consumption, water use, workplace injuries, or any other custom metric specific to that business – the platform now automatically displays the previous year’s figure beside the entry field. This simple, real-time “guardrail” does three powerful things:
- Flags outliers instantly – If a value differs significantly from last year’s data, the reporter notices immediately and can investigate before submission, rather than after an audit exposes issues.
- Improves completeness – Seeing a missing datapoint highlighted against the prior year reduces the risk of teams forgetting to submit data.
- Supports narrative building – Teams can show clear performance trends and see how much they’ve progressed since the previous year.
By leveraging past data, this small feature makes a big difference to the way teams report on their sustainability metrics.
Feature 2: Impartial data viewer capabilities
Once data has been finalised, KEY ESG’s new software features allow administrators to grant read-only access to any internal or external reviewer. The invitee gains read-only access to the figures and the methodologies, can export the data and create personal “saved views” in the platform, allowing them to impartially audit the data.
This capability tackles two hurdles in sustainability assurance:
- Save time: Auditors often spend a lot of time and energy chasing explanations and evidence. Providing them with complete, audit-friendly data up-front keeps the back-and-forth to a minimum and saves time in the long run.
- Demonstrate clear process: granting read-only access to the data trail and calculation methodology enables internal and external auditors to understand the robustness of the reporting process.
With data easily accessible to third-party auditors, firms can get instant feedback on their metrics and easily identify areas for improvement before their data is officially submitted.
Future-proof your sustainability reporting process
Regulators have raised the bar and CSRD has raised it even higher. Auditable ESG reporting is no longer something that sets a company apart, it’s the new standard. In order to future-proof your organisation against increasing sustainability reporting demands, a business needs to find a platform which supports the following activities:
- Avoid manual errors: By embedding guardrails and reviewer access into routine workflows, the platform turns what used to be a manual, spreadsheet-heavy exercise into a repeatable, systemised process.
- Build repeatable systems: Real-time checks reduce the need for edits, which can often push sustainability reports up against regulatory deadlines.
- Earn greater stakeholder trust: Investors receive numbers that have already been scrutinised internally and, where appropriate, independently. This enhances credibility in an increasingly sceptical market.
By integrating this functionality into our sustainability software, KEY ESG equips organisations to meet today’s reporting standards more easily and efficiently.
Book a demo today to see our new tools in action.
Over the past two years, sustainability reporting has undergone a decisive shift: quality, consistency, and auditability now sit at the top of the regulatory agenda.
Nowhere is that clearer than in the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Under the CSRD, firms must publish annual sustainability statements prepared in accordance with European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) and subject to third-party assurance.
Because the ESRS demands annual demonstration of reporting process, and because assurance providers must be able to verify every figure back to source, sustainability data must now be investor-grade: traceable, complete, and comparable.
Organisations without robust data aggregation processes risk encountering challenges in the review and sign-off phases of their sustainability reporting.
Against this backdrop, KEY ESG has introduced two features designed to make sustainability reporting auditable by design.
Feature 1: Real-time guardrails
When users input a metric – whether it’s energy consumption, water use, workplace injuries, or any other custom metric specific to that business – the platform now automatically displays the previous year’s figure beside the entry field. This simple, real-time “guardrail” does three powerful things:
- Flags outliers instantly – If a value differs significantly from last year’s data, the reporter notices immediately and can investigate before submission, rather than after an audit exposes issues.
- Improves completeness – Seeing a missing datapoint highlighted against the prior year reduces the risk of teams forgetting to submit data.
- Supports narrative building – Teams can show clear performance trends and see how much they’ve progressed since the previous year.
By leveraging past data, this small feature makes a big difference to the way teams report on their sustainability metrics.
Feature 2: Impartial data viewer capabilities
Once data has been finalised, KEY ESG’s new software features allow administrators to grant read-only access to any internal or external reviewer. The invitee gains read-only access to the figures and the methodologies, can export the data and create personal “saved views” in the platform, allowing them to impartially audit the data.
This capability tackles two hurdles in sustainability assurance:
- Save time: Auditors often spend a lot of time and energy chasing explanations and evidence. Providing them with complete, audit-friendly data up-front keeps the back-and-forth to a minimum and saves time in the long run.
- Demonstrate clear process: granting read-only access to the data trail and calculation methodology enables internal and external auditors to understand the robustness of the reporting process.
With data easily accessible to third-party auditors, firms can get instant feedback on their metrics and easily identify areas for improvement before their data is officially submitted.
Future-proof your sustainability reporting process
Regulators have raised the bar and CSRD has raised it even higher. Auditable ESG reporting is no longer something that sets a company apart, it’s the new standard. In order to future-proof your organisation against increasing sustainability reporting demands, a business needs to find a platform which supports the following activities:
- Avoid manual errors: By embedding guardrails and reviewer access into routine workflows, the platform turns what used to be a manual, spreadsheet-heavy exercise into a repeatable, systemised process.
- Build repeatable systems: Real-time checks reduce the need for edits, which can often push sustainability reports up against regulatory deadlines.
- Earn greater stakeholder trust: Investors receive numbers that have already been scrutinised internally and, where appropriate, independently. This enhances credibility in an increasingly sceptical market.
By integrating this functionality into our sustainability software, KEY ESG equips organisations to meet today’s reporting standards more easily and efficiently.
Book a demo today to see our new tools in action.
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