“CSRD compliance presents both challenges and opportunities for companies of all sizes. In order to streamline and optimize reporting processes for sustainability, an open and flexible data platform like Beacon Tower, is an obvious solution”

What is CSRD?

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is a regulation introduced by the European Union (EU) to enhance the transparency and reliability of sustainability reporting among companies operating within the EU. CSRD expands the scope of reporting requirements, requiring companies to disclose more detailed information on their environmental and social impacts, governance practices, and business models. This new directive affects not only large enterprises but also SMEs, as it aims to create a level playing field and promote sustainability practices across all business sectors.

Impact on Large Enterprises:

For large companies, CSRD compliance can give rise to significant challenges if operations include physical assets that leave an environmental footprint. Large companies often deal with huge amounts of data generated by multiple sources and systems across different departments, which can make data consolidation and reporting a difficult task. In addition, large companies typically operate in multiple jurisdictions, each with its own set of regulatory requirements. Failure to comply with the CSRD can lead to fines, reputational damage and lost business opportunities. It is critical for these companies to implement effective solutions that streamline data collection, consolidation and reporting processes while ensuring accuracy and timeliness. It will also be a legal requirement that the company come up with future projections of its environmental impact. There are therefore many good reasons to get your data consolidation and reporting under control if your company has a significant environmental footprint.

Impact on SMEs:

Although SMEs typically have smaller operations compared to large companies, CSRD compliance can still be an extensive activity. SMEs have limited resources, including staff and technological infrastructure, making it challenging to implement comprehensive sustainability reporting systems. However, compliance with CSRD requirements can give SMEs a competitive advantage by demonstrating their commitment to sustainable business practices, attracting socially responsible investors and building trust with stakeholders. To overcome resource constraints, SMEs need agile and cost-effective solutions that simplify data management and reporting procedures.

How do we effectively establish the data platform for CSRD reporting?

Leveraging IoT Cloud Solutions for CSRD Reporting:

To solve the reporting challenges imposed by CSRD, companies can benefit greatly from an IoT cloud solution that offers flexibility, openness and scalability. These solutions provide a centralized platform for collecting, aggregating and analysing data from the relevant data sources, which contain information that can be used to report on CO2 footprints, fossil fuel consumption, etc. By being able to offer a flexible integration to the existing infrastructure and by normalising data in one open data platform, data silos are eliminated and data consolidation is ensured in real time and thus the basis for effective CSRD reporting is achieved.

Beacon Tower and CSRD-reporting:

Beacon Tower is used today to consolidate data from customers’ physical infrastructure with a view to streamlining future processes for CSRD reporting.
In the following customer case, we exemplify how Beacon Tower can act as the central data platform to collect and consolidate data, from which the organization’s other departments can easily retrieve data and efficiently create the exact reports that are needed.
In this customer case, we exemplify the CSRD reporting in a construction company. The contractor has a large number of construction machines, e.g. excavators, diesel generators and foundation machines. Furthermore, these machines are from different machine manufacturers such as e.g. Hitachi, Volvo, Caterpillar, etc., each of which has its own back-ends with associated different APIs which are used by external parties to retrieve data. Data is also delivered in different formats, some in batches of CSV files and SQL dumps and others deliver real-time time series. To handle the different formats and data sources, Beacon Tower uses the built-in capability called Provider Services. In short, Provider Services provides an opportunity to make separate integrations without the core of Beacon Tower having to be changed, as Provider Services precisely ensures that the data format that is sent to the core of Beacon Tower is preserved, and you therefore only have to make a “translation” of the imported data format for Beacon Towers, for which you can use existing functions.
Beacon Tower’s use of Asset Models also makes it easy to create digital shadows that take care of the immediate handling of the individual data points from each machine, which can then be normalized and consolidated using new generalizations of Asset Models. All assets can be put together in desired structures by the individual department or person. A screenshot from the customer case can be seen here, where they started by looking at CO2 and fuel reporting from excavators:

CSRD reporting

More generally, one can thus conclude that, in relation to CSRD, Beacon Tower provides:

Real-time data consolidation: Beacon Tower enables companies to consolidate CSRD-related data from various sources in real-time, ensuring accurate and up-to-date reporting. This eliminates manual data entry and reduces the risk of errors or delays associated with traditional data collection methods.
Scalability and flexibility: With the ability to handle an unlimited number of data sources, the Beacon Tower data platform can be scaled effortlessly, in step with reporting needs, thus meeting changing CSRD reporting requirements. The flexibility of such a solution allows adaptation and integration with existing systems, ensuring seamless data flow and compliance across the organization.
Advanced Analytics and Insights: Beacon Tower enables companies to derive valuable insights from their CSRD data. By leveraging advanced analytics capabilities, organizations can identify trends, monitor performance indicators and proactively address sustainability challenges. This data-driven approach helps optimize resource allocation, identify cost-saving opportunities and drive continuous improvement.

Conclusion:

CSRD compliance presents both challenges and opportunities for companies of all sizes. In order to streamline and optimize reporting processes for sustainability, an open and flexible data platform like Beacon Tower, which offers flexibility, openness and real-time data consolidation, is an obvious solution that will even be able to provide competitive advantages in addition to contributing to a more sustainable future. By using Beacon Tower, you thus get an efficient, open and flexible data platform that can be easily tailored in line with the reporting needs.

For more information:

Partner, Mikael Rönde, mikael.ronde@glaze.dk

Take also a look on whether you should build your own IoT data platform, control it or just rent it. It might also be interesting to read about why open data models are so important and how Beacon Tower structures data.