{
  "id": 19151712,
  "title": "Do More With Sustainability Data",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/09/do-more-with-sustainability-data",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-11-09T12:00:41.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "MIT Sloan",
    "slug": "mit-sloan",
    "url": "https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/do-more-with-sustainability-data/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In 2022, the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive was predicted to create approximately €1.7 billion in initial costs and €1.9 billion in ongoing expenses. Even in markets like the U.S., sustainability is viewed as a long-term competitive advantage by numerous businesses. Roughly 48% of global companies employ double materiality assessments, which evaluate the impact of sustainability efforts on both financial performance and society. This shift represents a significant change from the narrower focus on financial materiality observed just a few years ago.\n\nHowever, much of the sustainability reporting work remains reactive and centered on meeting regulatory requirements, which is a missed opportunity. Investments in data collection systems and reporting can be more strategically valuable. For example, Schneider Electric and European fashion retailer Zalando have shown how broad sustainability goals can be turned into measurable, outcome-driven practices. These companies illustrate the potential for sustainability data to drive meaningful change on the ground, such as redesigning workflows, linking financial and nonfinancial KPIs, and coordinating data across departments.\n\nTo help businesses move from seeing sustainability as a simple reporting obligation to an integrated execution across departments, five principles have been developed. These principles offer guidance for companies at various stages of their sustainability journey. The first principle is to focus on the material core. Producing a comprehensive sustainability report can be overwhelming, with companies facing up to 82 disclosure requirements and over 1,100 data points. Many organizations end up reporting on too many sustainability topics in an effort to mitigate risk, which can make the reporting process complex and disconnected from driving business value. Instead, organizations should prioritize reporting on the few sustainability topics that genuinely impact enterprise value and stakeholder interest. This involves making bold exclusions upfront, ensuring reported data is strategically relevant and useful for external decision-makers.\n\nThe second principle is to define the data's job to be done. In most organizations, sustainability data is primarily collected for reporting purposes, with sustainability teams investing significant effort in producing polished reports for external stakeholders. However, this data is often too aggregated and disconnected to be useful. To address this, companies should determine the specific purpose for each data point and ensure it aligns with their overall sustainability strategy. This approach can help turn sustainability data into a powerful tool for driving corporate performance.",
  "summary": "Maria Bloom/Ikon Images Many large companies have invested significant amounts of time and capital into sustainability reporting. In 2022, the European Union’s ambitious sustainability reporting framework, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, was projected to generate approximately €1.7 billion (about $1.8 billion) in one-off costs and €1.9 billion in recurring costs. Even in less…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}