Integrating Operational Sustainability Management (formerly ESG) with Watershed

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Integrating Operational Sustainability Management (formerly ESG) with Watershed

    Watershed is a tool designed for organizations to measure carbon emissions and renewable energy impacts, enabling them to reduce emissions and report progress. Operational Sustainability Management users can utilize Watershed to calculate their Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions, which categorize emissions based on their source.

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    Key Features

    • Emission Scopes: Understand Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, which include direct and indirect sources of greenhouse gases.
    • Data Integration: Data from Watershed is maintained in spreadsheets and must be imported into Operational Sustainability Management source tables.
    • Plugin Activation: To utilize Watershed features, activate the Operational Sustainability Integration with Watershed plugin and configure metric integrations.
    • Automated Metric Definitions: Only automated metric definitions with External source as the Method type support data import.
    • Flexible Metric Creation: Create metric definitions or allow the system to create placeholders for later use.
    • Data Mapping: Create custom data mappings to import Watershed data beyond pre-configured columns.

    Key Outcomes

    Once the integration is set up, organizations can effectively load and verify emissions data from Watershed, ensuring accurate reporting and analysis. Transform maps facilitate the conversion of imported data into usable metric data. This streamlines the management of sustainability efforts and enhances reporting capabilities.

    Watershed is a tool that enables organizations to measure their carbon emissions and renewable energy and its impact. It also enables organizations to act to reduce emissions, and to report on the progress to reduce their carbon footprint.

    Operational Sustainability Management users can use Watershed to calculate their Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions for their business. A company’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are classified into three Scopes. The following table explains the difference between each Scope.
    Table 1. Difference between Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions
    Scope 1 Scope 2 Scope 3
    Direct GHG emissions from the following sources:
    • Fuel combustion
    • Emissions from company vehicles
    • Emissions from chemical production in owned or controlled process equipment
    • Fugitive emissions
    		 Indirect emissions from the following sources:
    • Purchased electricity
    • Heat and steam.
    		 Indirect emissions from the following sources:
    • Purchased goods and services
    • Business travel
    • Employee commuting
    • Waste disposal
    • Use of sold products
    • Transportation and distribution (up- and downstream)
    • Investments
    • Leased assets and franchises

    Watershed maintains its data in spreadsheets and provides those spreadsheets to the Operational Sustainability Management program manager. As an Operational Sustainability Management program manager, with the role sn_esg.program_manager, you must import the data from the spreadsheets into the source tables in the Operational Sustainability Management application. The source tables are then specified in the metric definitions in a ServiceNow instance.

    To use the features of Watershed, you must activate the Operational Sustainability Integration with Watershed plugin and configure the metric integrations.
    Note:
    • To successfully import data, you must add the import_admin role to the sn_grc_metric.admin role.
    • Only automated metric definitions with External source as the Method type support data import. If you already have a manual metric definition in your system, you must change its Type to Automated and the Method type to External source before you can import data. For more information, refer to Create an automated metric definition.

    Before you import data from the spreadsheets, you can either create the metric definitions or you can rely on the system to create placeholders and add the details later.

    The metrics are generated based on the frequency that you have defined in the metric definition. The metric values, along with their units, are displayed on the metrics related list in the metric definition. The values are then rolled up based on the formula specified in the metric definition.
    Note:
    You can convert any metric data into a preferred reporting unit.
    By default, the ServiceNow AI Platform provides the following data that you can import from Watershed.
    • Carbon emissions
    • Renewable energy
    • Non-renewable energy

    You may also want to import other data such as water usage or waste disposal. To import other types of data, you can use the Metric integrations to import your data.