Businesses are increasingly expected to report on their ESG performance, not only for compliance with regulations but also to meet the growing demand from investors and clients for transparency and sustainability. For example, uppliers are inundated with requests to fill out multiple ESG questionnaires each year as part of the larger ESG data reporting ecosystem.
ESG due diligence and reporting can be a time-consuming and complex task for both businesses and their suppliers - which is why we recently built a tool that can make this process much easier for corporate ESG teams.
Introducing: Briink's ESG Questionnaire Assistant!
What is Briink's ESG Questionnaire Assistant, and how can companies use it to streamline their ESG reporting efforts?
Brink’s ESG Questionnaire Assistant is an AI-powered tool that simplifies the process of ESG due diligence and reporting for corporates. It allows you to screen company documents for multiple ESG metrics and KPIs automatically.
Getting started with it is incredibly straightforward – simply create a new questionnaire, drag and drop any relevant company documents, and you’re done!
As a corporate ESG specialist, here are some ways to use ESG Questionnaire Assistant to get the most out of your assessments:
Use case #1 - Simplify ESG reporting
ESG data collection is the #1 challenge for companies when it comes to ESG and sustainability reporting. There are many reporting platforms on the market, but these are largely workflow management systems, so ESG teams are still largely left to fend for themselves when it comes to the difficult task of actually collecting the data.
It gets even more complicated when it comes to gathering data from suppliers. Using AI for document data extraction can save your team a substantial amount of time (and can spare you from having to deal with hefty consultants’ fees) during the crucial data collection phase, making the whole reporting process significantly faster and leaner.
Use case #2 - Streamline supply chain ESG due diligence
It is now increasingly common for suppliers to be bombarded with ESG data requests by their clients. A common practice is to send out long ESG questionnaires to suppliers, which can vary substantially, depending on the ESG frameworks being referenced.
With ESG Questionnaire Assistant, you can get over and done with the bulk of your ESG due diligence work in just a couple hours (!) compared to days or weeks.
The only prerequisite is to gather all the relevant documents from your suppliers beforehand. For more information, see what document formats Briink supports.
Simplify access to financing and funding:
Just like in the case of supply chain due diligence, ESG considerations are an increasingly crucial criterion for the access to financing and funding. Not only are investors rapidly becoming “environmentally and socially conscious”, but banks and investors are progressively incorporating extensive ESG due diligence into their processes to identify risks.
In this case, you can use the tool to simplify due diligence for your own company. Simply gather your evidence (any relevant documents), copy-paste the questionnaire you received in the tool, and run it.
Conclusion
By combining the ESG Questionnaire Assistant with human expertise, you can not only create process efficiencies, but cut down on the risk of human error.
In a world where sustainability and ESG data are critical, adopting AI technology like Briink’s is not just about simplifying bureaucracy and reporting process – it's about identifying the most meaningful ESG metrics and insights efficiently.