The third annual Workiva ESG Practitioner Survey polled over 2,000 people involved in corporate reporting, including finance and accounting, sustainability, risk, and internal audit professionals across North America, Europe, and Asia.
The report found that 87 per cent of ESG practitioners surveyed find it challenging to adapt reporting processes to comply with new regulations; specifically, 77 per cent said that obtaining third-party assurance to comply with the CSRD is challenging.
Further, a total of 59 per cent of respondents agree that ESG regulation has disrupted their company’s reporting processes; this percentage is even higher among executives at 65 per cent.
However, it was also found that 81 per cent of companies not subject to the CSRD still intend to comply.
Indeed, 88 per cent of practitioners agree that having a strong ESG reporting program will give their organisation a competitive advantage, and 84 per cent agree that integrated financial and ESG/sustainability data enables better decision-making that can improve a company’s financial performance.
Moreover, 88 per cent of ESG practitioners believe that assurance over ESG data increases the likelihood that a company will achieve its goals, and 98 per cent are confident in the accuracy of their data.
That being said, eighty-three per cent also agree that collecting accurate data to fulfil the CSRD requirements will be a challenge for their organisation.
To aid in this challenge, 92 per cent of companies are investing in technology to improve collaboration among reporting teams.
The report also found that there remains a disconnect between executives and managers, in that while 53 per cent are totally satisfied with their organisation’s materiality assessment, only 23 per cent of managers are.
Likewise, a similar disparity was found regarding satisfaction with the application of controls over ESG/sustainability data. Forty-eight per cent of executives were satisfied, compared with just 27 per cent of managers.
Read the full report here.