For many organizations, sustainability reporting poses a challenge because it has additional requirements not typically found in most financial analytics and reporting systems. There are typically many different data sources--such as operational systems, financial systems, documents, published reports—and many different kinds of indicators that must be collected and aggregated. The diversity of the relevant structured and unstructured data further complicates matters.

But there's more to sustainability than just reporting. Sustainability initiatives should be part of your overall performance management practices. This means:

• Including all stakeholder requirements and sustainability issues in your goal-setting process
• Driving sustainability initiatives into financial and operating plans
• Monitoring and analyzing sustainability metrics and adjusting goals and initiatives to achieve short- and long-term goals
• Reporting progress on sustainability initiatives to internal and external stakeholders

Increasingly, Oracle customers are using Oracle's Enterprise Performance Management applications and Business Intelligence tools for their sustainability reporting, planning and management to be able to track sustainability initiatives in an efficient, systematic manner. With Sustainability Sensor Data Management, Oracle provides innovative capabilities to monitor energy usage, reduce waste and reach Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reduction goals.

Oracle's Hyperion Financial Management application makes sustainability reporting a faster process. One customer reduced an 18-month fragmented process, involving over 1,300 emails, to a single process aligned with its financial closing dates.

Although in many countries sustainability reporting is still voluntary, an auditable process using Oracle's Performance Management Applications and Business Intelligence tools helps build stakeholder trust and credibility, and allows organizations to be transparent with confidence. Organizations can also capture, analyze and report their sustainability data with Oracle Sustainability Sensor Data Management.

All sustainability data is stored within a single Enterprise Performance Management system, together with the overall operational and financial management information. This allows organizations to analyze correlations, results, variances and improvement opportunitie, and create a sustainable decision-making process.