As ESG regulations and disclosure requirements become more stringent, the collection, storage and analysis of ESG-related data are going to play a more important role in companies’ ESG management. To help companies collect and process a large number of various types of ESG information more conveniently, GreenCo has successfully developed and launched a new ESG Portal for the digital management of ESG data, which is one of the first digital ESG data platforms in Hong Kong that can be customized according to individual company’s needs.
GreenCo’s new ESG Portal is specially designed for the digital management of ESG data collection. Individual clients will have their own customized portal for management. This portal is perfect for companies with various geographical locations and companies that need to collect data from a large amount of branches or stores.
Remote and easy access
The ESG Portal is an application with different digital forms embedded. Individual clients will have access to their own portal, while their staff in multiple business locations can remote access the platform and submit their entries easily. This can also come in handy for the ESG Portal is designed to be adaptable to all sizes of electronic screens, ranging from phones, tablets to laptops views. To facilitate easy work allocation, GreenCo is going to assist its client to design the structure of the portal according to their reporting lines and segregation of duties.
Quality Control
To control the quality of the data collected, the ESG Portal is also equipped with the data validation function which is designed to prevent invalid or human error in the input process. Supported by GreenCo’s abundant experience in serving over 60 public companies covering a wide spectrum of industries and geographical locations, the data validation criteria are designed to lead to better and error-free data.
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Automated Calculations
Furthermore, the ESG Portal also supports the basic scoring algorithm and calculation, which can help save time and reduce errors. In addition, ESG scorecards can be designed for clients to perform ESG evaluation on a digital basis. This can also help clients that looking for solutions in evaluating their supplier’s ESG performance or fund manager in evaluating their investee’s ESG performance.
Cost and Benefit
The actual cost will depend on customer’s specific requirements (on validation and interfaces) and ESG data organization structure. It may cost around 50% of the annual reporting budget for the first time and around 20% to 33% of annual reporting budget for the next few years. The benefit is huge for time cost savings in centralized data management, the risk of personnel change, promoting consistency and error prevention.
The Director of GreenCo, Max Tsang explained that “With our years of experience in helping our clients to prepare their annual ESG Report, we can see that some clients with diverse business segments and business locations need a lot of help in data collection as well as consolidation and processing of the scattered data. In view of this, riding on the trend of digitalization, we have developed the ESG Portal as a one-stop solution for our clients to better collect and handle their ESG data. We believe that by better managing the ESG data, companies can track their progress more easily and thereby allowing opportunities to enhance their ESG performance.”
Stephanie Chan, the senior consultant of GreenCo, is convinced that the new ESG Portal not only helps companies to collect ESG data in a more organized way, but can also help companies prepare for future regulatory updates such as independent assurance of the annual ESG report. “With the ESG Portal, all ESG data are collected and saved on the server. Whenever audit evidence is needed, clients can simply export the data saved with the submission personnel and submission data clearly logged, resulting in easy reporting and auditability,” she added.
As the world is moving away from the traditional way of data processing that involves loads of paper forms and spreadsheets, GreenCo hopes that this launch of the ESG Portal can help its clients to transit towards a more sustainable digitalized future.
Source; GreenCo