{"id":5091,"date":"2026-02-25T10:27:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T09:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beeminds.nl\/insights\/no-csrd-reporting-without-a-sustainable-data-platform"},"modified":"2026-05-18T11:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T09:38:12","slug":"no-csrd-reporting-without-a-sustainable-data-platform","status":"publish","type":"knowledge_pt","link":"https:\/\/www.beeminds.nl\/en\/insights\/no-csrd-reporting-without-a-sustainable-data-platform","title":{"rendered":"No CSRD reporting without a sustainable data platform"},"content":{"rendered":"
The beginning of 2025 is the time. That’s when the first phase for the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will go into effect. For many organizations, this approaching CSRD brings a significant transformation. This reporting requirement and directive aims to provide sound sustainability metrics, in addition to financial figures, and to substantiate ESG impacts. See here also immediately the challenge; Providing CSRD reports that comply with the CSRD guidelines requires many different data points. For this, not only internal data sources, but also external sources from (suppliers) need to be accessed. Practice shows that obtaining and processing this extensive data set is a major challenge. After all, how do you guarantee the quality and availability of information in this reporting process? <\/p>\n
In this article you will read how a foundation, in the form of a good data platform, helps organizations not only meet their CSRD obligation, but can actually contribute to making a sustainable impact with data within your organization.<\/p>\n
CSRD reporting requirement<\/strong><\/h2>\n
To comply as Europe with the agreed Green Deal, the EU published the CSRD guidelines in April 2021. As a result, by 2025, much of Dutch business must report on fiscal year 2024. For many organizations, this means the time has come to set the pace. Redesigning or rigging a data landscape to be CSRD-proof is an extensive task that involves numerous (data) challenges as well as major transformation. This is true for large companies but certainly for SME+ organizations that have not reported on such an extensive scale before. <\/p>\n
Culture change and data management are especially challenging<\/strong><\/h2>\n
During CSRD implementation, companies must integrate ESG information into both reports and their management organization. CSRD reports regularly use hundreds of data points, where collecting many data sources and ensuring data quality is a difficult task. This requires a sustainable approach. <\/p>\n
Changing the organizational culture is also a challenge in which ESG must become part of the corporate story and strategy. The change process has some necessary steps involving selection of applicable ESRS standards, dual materiality analysis, support development, training of (data) employees, storytelling by management and (not unimportantly) implementing a sustainable data platform. <\/p>\n
CSRD Dashboards: make or buy? <\/strong><\/h2>\n
Purchasing off-the-shelf CSRD dashboards seems like a logical route, however, this choice comes with challenges that organizations do not overlook beforehand. Where is the source of the data used, who is responsible for accessing the data sources, data quality and security? Plus, how will you demonstrate at audit time how this data was created? <\/p>\n
Sustainable data platform as the foundation <\/strong><\/h2>\n
At the root of any reporting process is a good foundation. A sustainable data platform automates the disclosure, analysis and reporting of CSRD (and other) data. CSRD reporting requires flexibility as it requires unlocking structured and unstructured data from various internal and external ESG sources. This requires a good data foundation which is independent of the <\/p>\n
reporting tool being deployed. This platform needs to be ready for future data ambitions of the enterprise, in which data products will not be shared solely in reporting form. Since CSRD data, in the future, will be part of services within a value chain, being able to automatically deliver and receive CSRD data based on (open) industry standards is a must. <\/p>\n
Is CSRD also your starting point for more data-driven work? <\/strong><\/h2>\n
A sustainable data platform thus enables you to report comprehensively and automatically on multiple ESG data sources, without compromising on data quality and reliability. But that’s the basics.A modern data platform also enables your organization, with analytics and AI scenarios, to achieve process efficiency, risk mitigation and revenue growth through new data-driven services for customers. In this case, the development of CSRD reporting has maximum impact on the strategic direction of the organization, its customers and its environment. <\/p>\n
How to start now?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Depending on where you are as an organization in the CSRD implementation and the data maturity within your organization, you can quickly and incrementally get to a working CSRD report. There are several standard CSRD Dashboards available in the market, however, they do not solve the data management problem. So as far as we are concerned, there are two routes; You go along with the standard developments that Cloud vendors, such as Microsoft for example, offer around this topic. Or you start your own sustainable data platform on which you develop CRSD Reports and are ready to make your organization more data-driven. <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
CSRD Reporting Dashboard \/ Microsoft Project ESG Lake<\/em><\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.beeminds.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/fa614c_55b4fb0b7b6c4a298a927799b362d63fmv2.png\")
<\/figure>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.beeminds.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/fa614c_86ef32e8363f45cc85d79f436deed66emv2-3.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"