Sustainability consultancy ERM has announced a strategic partnership with cloud platform Workiva to help provide organisations with real-time data for their ESG disclosure requirements.
Workiva claims to be the only platform which brings financial reporting, ESG and GRC (governance, risk and compliance) together in a ‘secure, controlled, audit-ready’ environment. The company cites this as a differentiator with regard to the convergence of financial and non-financial reporting.
“Introducing sustainability information to the financial reporting arena is raising the stakes for organisations and those responsible for external reporting,” wrote Workiva industry principal Grant Ostler in a 2023 blog post. “This increased scrutiny magnifies the added pressure financial reporting teams feel when it comes to sustainability information, which they have little experience with.”
Where ERM comes in is through its ability to help clients integrate sustainability solutions to offer companies ‘an end-to-end solution for data management and reporting that enables them to meet rapidly evolving sustainability reporting regulations while driving sustainability performance’, as the company puts it.
“As a full service, global strategic partner to Workiva, ERM is excited to provide its clients with a technically robust and assurable sustainability reporting solution,” said Luiz Guimaraes, global service leader, corporate sustainability and climate change at ERM.
“Ultimately, our clients will gain real-time access to data that informs their risk management-to-value creation journey. Our partnership with Workiva will help our clients be ready for emerging ESG disclosure regulations and, in the process, advance their business strategy.”
This is the latest in a string of partnerships ERM has announced in the past 12 months with sustainability software firms. Other partners include ESG reporting software provider Greenomy, software platform for carbon and sustainability data management Sweep, and ESG data management platform Novata.
The combination of integrated platform and assurance expertise will be an important one going forward, according to Workiva’s 2024 ESG Practitioner Survey. 87% of the more than 2,000 industry respondents polled said it was challenging to adapt reporting processes to comply with new ESG regulations, while a similar percentage (88%) believed assurance over ESG data makes it more likely for a company to achieve its goals.
