Exploring ESG Management

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 1, 2024
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Exploring ESG Management

    The ServiceNow® ESG Management application provides organizations with a centralized tool to manage their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives. It addresses the challenges of visibility and tracking progress in ESG efforts, enabling companies to communicate their ESG goals effectively.

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    Key Features

    • Interactive Dashboard: Manage ESG activities from the ESG Workspace.
    • Material Topics: Identify and track material topics to measure success.
    • Goals and Targets: Establish ESG goals and specific targets to monitor progress.
    • Metrics: Create definitions and collect data to assess performance against goals.
    • Disclosures: Generate disclosures for review to inform stakeholders about ESG compliance and risks.
    • Sustainable IT Management: Monitor emissions and energy consumption of hardware assets.
    • Scope 3 Dashboard: Track indirect emissions to ensure comprehensive environmental impact management.
    • ESG Content Accelerator: Access a repository of frameworks and metrics to enhance ESG adoption.
    • Forecast Planning: Simulate scenarios for better strategic planning.

    Key Outcomes

    By implementing the ESG Management application, organizations can:

    • Enhance brand reputation and attract investors.
    • Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
    • Improve corporate governance through transparent practices.
    • Gain insights into risks and opportunities related to ESG.
    • Facilitate informed decision-making for stakeholders.

    This application is essential for organizations aiming to effectively manage their ESG strategies and demonstrate their commitment to sustainable practices.

    The ServiceNow® ESG Management application helps you to manage your environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives.

    ESG Management overview

    While most organizations engage in ESG initiatives, some lack a central tool to manage all their ESG programs. The absence of a tool leads to a lack of visibility into the ESG efforts and lack of progression tracking. The ESG Management application helps to resolve this issue. This application enables companies to manage their ESG programs and to communicate their ESG goals and progress.

    The business benefits of ESG reporting using the ESG Management application are as follows:
    • Improves your brand reputation.
    • Creates a competitive advantage.
    • Attracts investors and more capital.
    • Enables you to comply with regulatory requirements.
    • Establishes strong corporate governance through ethical, transparent, and secure business practices.
    • Improves corporate reputation.
    • Improves customer confidence.
    • Promotes transparency about the risks and opportunities.

    ESG Management workflow

    The following diagram shows the workflow of ESG Management for each user role.

    Figure 1. Workflow of setting up and using the ESG Management application
    Infographic for setting up and using the ESG Management application to create disclosures. For the text description, refer to the workflow steps that follow.
    Document material topics
    Determine the material topics you’d like to track, such as managing carbon emissions. See Create material topics to get started and review Material topic workflow and states for more details.
    Establish goals
    Goals are the outcomes you want to achieve, and targets are specific, measurable milestones that help you reach the goals. The Create an ESG goal page explains how to enter your goals and includes links to useful information like how goal progress is calculated. See Create an ESG goal for details.
    Create targets
    A target shows you how well you are doing against your goal. The Create an ESG target page shows you how to do it.
    Associate entities with goals
    Associate the entities that must be tracked for the goals and subgoals. This association is created for tracking purposes. Entities that are associated with the goal are responsible for tracking the goal. See Associate entities to goals for more details.
    Define metrics
    Create metric definitions and metrics to measure performance and how the organization is progressing toward its goals and targets. To gain an in-depth understanding of what are metrics and how they’re useful in ESG Management, refer to Exploring GRC: Metrics
    Add metrics to targets
    Optionally, after you create a target, you can add a source for the target. The source can be a metric or a metric definition that contributes to the target. See Add a source for a target for more details.
    Provide data for manual metrics or automatically collect data for automated metrics
    Collect data for metrics either manually or automatically. Data must be provided manually for manual metrics and is automatically collected at the scheduled time for automated metrics. See Provide data for a metric data task for more details.
    Generate disclosures
    The disclosure is sent for review to the ESG program manager and after approval, it can be downloaded to a spreadsheet for easier reporting. Using the Microsoft 365 for ServiceNow Reporting, you can create disclosures in a Microsoft Word document. See Integrating Microsoft 365 with ServiceNow reporting to get started and review Disclosures in ESG Management for details.

    ESG Management benefits

    Benefit Feature Users
    Manage your ESG activities from the interactive dashboard in the Home page. Operational Sustainability Workspace ESG program manager, disclosure manager.
    Monitor your individual and team tasks from a single dashboard in the My tasks view. My tasks page view ESG program manager
    Create material topics to determine your ESG initiatives Create a material topic ESG program manager
    Establish ESG goals to track your progress toward your chosen material topics. Create an ESG goal ESG program manager
    Create an ESG target to help track the progress towards your ESG goal. Create an ESG target ESG program manager
    Use GRC: Metrics to track goals and targets, collect data, and report data. Exploring GRC: Metrics Metrics manager
    Create disclosures for your organization. Disclosures enable investors to make informed decisions about companies, their risk posture, sustainability standards, and ESG compliance. Create a narrative disclosure on remote storage Reporting disclosure manager, ESG program manager