Sustainability leaders often enter their roles to drive change — not to chase spreadsheets across departments. Yet across the UK, ESG reporting is still burdened by manual processes that waste time, frustrate teams, and undermine the very purpose of environmental transparency. In this article, we unpack the unseen costs of doing things the old-fashioned way — and how a smarter approach can free up your people, your budget, and your reputation.
Behind every annual ESG report is a quiet storm of emails, Excel files, and late nights. According to Deloitte, sustainability teams spend up to 60% of their time gathering and formatting data — not analysing or improving it.
This means:
Manual ESG reporting erodes job satisfaction. When talented professionals spend their days chasing invoices or utility bills instead of designing reduction strategies, they disengage — or leave.
For fast-growing businesses, this becomes a retention and hiring problem. Skilled ESG professionals want to work in high-impact environments, not ones bogged down by legacy systems.
Investors, customers, and regulators all want ESG data that is:
Manual workflows increase the chance of human error, duplicated data, or last-minute patches. One mistake can call an entire report into question. Worse, if sustainability claims can't be backed up, businesses open themselves up to accusations of greenwashing.
Modern businesses are beginning to treat ESG data like financial data — with real-time dashboards, system integrations, and audit trails.
By removing the manual effort, you:
Sustainability professionals didn’t sign up to be spreadsheet chasers. The right systems let them lead the change — not get buried under it.