Accelerating ESG initiatives with the help of ServiceNow

Some years ago, only a few companies were truly making sustainability commitments and even fewer had defined ESG strategies. Lately, most organisations strive towards being more sustainable and find it important to focus on ESG throughout their whole ecosystem. Being more sustainable will in many cases have a financial impact and require lots of focus and effort. Nevertheless, due to the importance and urgency of these initiatives, those facts are broadly accepted by top management and boards of directors. Missions like achieving net-zero emissions, using eco-friendly packaging and diversity, among many others, are being defined and pursued.

Benefits of using ServiceNow for ESG – Data

Besides finding funding and resources for these initiatives many companies are struggling with providing and tracking evidence of their achievements. According to Gartner, broad-based ESG reporting is going to be unquestionably required by 2025. Capturing, tracking and providing evidence for ESG initiatives can be achieved in different ways:

• using spreadsheets
• building custom applications
• leveraging capabilities of existing enterprise tools

ESG initiatives are not being handled by one business unit, they are cross-functional and depend on inputs and alignment across the whole company. Using existing enterprise applications, such as ServiceNow, to track ESG makes it easier to make informed and integrated decisions. Leveraging existing data and tool support for other business processes provides better insights and a more holistic understanding of current progress.

Incorporate non-financial in financial reporting

In terms of measurement, when it comes to benefits and outcomes, the nature of ESG initiatives is different from other business initiatives. Traditionally the majority of reporting, KPIs and targets are defined and tracked from a financial perspective with a focus on monetary figures. In ServiceNow, it is possible to define and track both monetary and non-monetary benefits. This capability provides companies with full clarity of all planned and active initiatives. Being able to build organisational roadmaps and prioritise ESG initiatives alongside other types of demands and projects, provides a consolidated picture and enables decision-makers to initiate the most valuable ideas which in the end results in better achievement of sustainability targets. Being able to create meaningful ESG KPIs and link them to other business KPIs, makes it possible to be serious about sustainability.

Three low-hanging fruits for existing ServiceNow customers

Based on our experience many organisations are directly or indirectly contributing to more sustainability but are not able to document these achievements. Plenty of ServiceNow customers can take advantage of existing data in the platform and with a small effort include measurement of ESG accomplishments, which will provide evidence for existing ESG achievements. Below are three examples of low-hanging fruits.

E-waste

The majority of our customers use ServiceNow to collect information and control the distribution of their electronic assets. Products like laptops, mobile phones, printers, etc. are already tracked and maintained with the help of ServiceNow. By defining targets to recycle these assets and creating metrics of how much recycling contributes to better sustainability, it is relatively easy to consolidate and communicate what has been achieved especially in terms of reducing e-waste and CO2 footprint.

GRC – Governance, Risk and Compliance

Governance is an integral part of both GRC and ESG. Its role in how an organisation operates and makes decisions is essential. Many ServiceNow customers use the platform to manage and support their risk and compliance-related processes. In many cases, GRC activities are contributing to ESG but these achievements are not documented. By adding an ESG dimension to e.g. different compliance activities or risk mitigation actions, it is possible to document achievements but also to choose the most sustainable option.

Vendor Management

Quite often and in connection with different business processes, vendor data is kept in ServiceNow. Processes like vendor contact management or vendor performance management are often supported by the platform. By extending the data already in place it is possible to add an ESG dimension. During the vendor performance evaluation, these new ESG metrics could be used to influence the vendor towards more sustainable solutions. Similar metrics could be also used in vendor selection. This will ensure that sustainability is also included as a parameter when choosing the best vendor.

To know more about how ServiceNow can help your organisation to fire up on sustainability, please reach out to us.