Sustainability Managers Still Rely on Excel for ESG Data

A recent study of sustainability professionals found the role has become defined by long hours spent on administrative tasks. For sustainability managers, the complaint captures a deepening crisis in corporate sustainability: despite an ESG software market worth billions, the people doing the actual work remain trapped in spreadsheets, chasing colleagues for data, and burning out.

A Deloitte survey found 57% of executives cite data quality as their single biggest ESG challenge. Yet 91% of companies still lack specialized software, relying instead on manual processes that consume up to 90% of sustainability managers’ time. As approximately 50,000 companies prepare for mandatory EU reporting requirements, this gap between ambition and infrastructure is becoming untenable.

The technology to solve these problems exists. Platforms from Workiva, Persefoni, Microsoft, and others promise automated data collection, regulatory tracking, and supplier engagement. The question is whether they address the actual pain points sustainability managers face daily, or simply add another system to manage.

Chasing Data From Colleagues Who Do Not Report to You

Sustainability managers frequently report that ESG feels like their isolated project rather than a collective organizational mission.

You need energy consumption from facilities teams focused on production targets. You require diversity metrics from HR departments managing recruitment crises. You must extract governance information from legal teams handling compliance fires. None of these colleagues report to you. Most do not view ESG reporting as their responsibility.

Weeks pass chasing basic information. When data arrives, it comes wrong. One site reports energy in kilowatt hours, another in therms, a third sends cost figures because they misunderstood the request. Converting everything into standardized units becomes manual spreadsheet work consuming entire days.

Solution: Platforms like Workiva and Persefoni offer API integrations pulling data from enterprise systems including ERP, carbon management platforms, and other sources. These connections can reduce the need to chase facilities teams. Energy consumption flows into the platform, where built-in tools handle unit conversion and apply regional emissions factors.

Microsoft Sustainability Manager recently introduced data collection features that send automated requests to facility managers, HR managers, and business admins. The system tracks submission status and enables approval workflows, creating audit trails spreadsheets cannot provide.

The limitation is implementation. API integrations require IT resources to configure and maintain. Success depends on whether executives view ESG data infrastructure as strategic priority or compliance overhead.

The Supplier Response Problem

Scope 3 emissions, covering your entire value chain, typically represent 70% to 90% of total carbon footprint. Calculating them requires supplier cooperation. Industry practitioners report response rates of 30% to 40% to data questionnaires.

Small suppliers lack resources to calculate emissions. Large suppliers receive similar requests from dozens of customers, each formatted differently. Many simply ignore requests carrying no commercial leverage.

Venisa Chu, Asia Pacific sustainability director at L’Occitane, described the challenge: “We have markets ranging from Korea to India. You can just imagine the differences in terms of the sustainability appetite and knowledge of the topic. [The biggest challenges are] getting them to understand the data requirements for basic ESG reporting, why it’s important and the purpose behind it.”

For non-responding suppliers, you estimate emissions using industry averages or spend-based models. As CSRD requires external assurance starting immediately, these estimates create audit risk.

Solution: Supplier collaboration platforms from EcoVadis and CDP integrate sustainability requests into procurement workflows. When your company issues purchase orders, suppliers receive automated data requests through portals they may already use. This increases response rates by reducing friction.

Some platforms pre-populate responses with industry benchmarks, allowing suppliers to confirm or adjust rather than calculate from scratch. AI tools flag when reported emissions deviate significantly from norms, helping you identify which responses need verification.

For suppliers who never respond, platforms like Persefoni and Salesforce Net Zero Cloud apply sector-specific emissions factors to spend data, documenting methodology for auditors.

When Data Arrives in the Wrong Format

You request energy data from global facilities. Germany sends kilowatt hours. America sends therms. China sends costs in renminbi because someone misunderstood. The UK sends nothing because they thought someone else was handling it.

You spend days converting units, looking up regional electricity grid emissions factors, fixing errors. One wrong decimal throws off the entire calculation. This is why you still live in Excel despite expensive ESG platforms.

Solution: Modern ESG platforms include built-in unit conversion and regularly updated emissions factor databases covering electricity grids, fuels, and refrigerants globally. Upload data in any format, select the location, and the platform handles conversions and applies correct emissions factors automatically.

Platforms like Workiva, Enablon, and Microsoft Sustainability Manager offer these capabilities. The time savings are substantial when data reaches your system.

Pre-built integrations with SAP and Oracle reduce custom development. Microsoft Sustainability Manager connects with the Microsoft ecosystem many companies already use. Some vendors offer managed implementation, handling integration without consuming internal IT resources.

The challenge remains getting colleagues to enter data directly into the platform rather than sending you spreadsheets to upload manually.

The Compliance Treadmill

Integrating sustainability into core business strategy remains difficult when it continues to be viewed as a compliance function rather than strategic priority. Many sustainability professionals describe feeling disconnected from senior leadership despite working impossible hours.

Sustainability professionals report spending up to 90% of their time on compliance tasks that do not advance actual environmental or social impact. Data scientists reportedly spend 80% of their time collecting, cleaning, and preparing ESG data. This leaves minimal capacity for actual analysis or strategy.

The focus on data aggregation and documentation leaves little time for the strategic sustainability work many professionals entered the field to do.

Solution: Automated emissions factor updates eliminate manually tracking changing electricity grid intensities across countries. Unit conversion tools reduce errors. Cloud deployment from vendors like Watershed and Salesforce Net Zero Cloud replaces large capital expenditure with monthly subscriptions, making approval easier.

However, technology cannot solve the fundamental problem that you lack authority over colleagues who control data. It cannot make executives view ESG as strategic rather than compliance overhead. The organizational dysfunction runs deeper than any platform can fix.

Regulations That Keep Changing

CSRD expanded mandatory reporting from 11,700 to approximately 50,000 companies. It introduced double materiality assessments and detailed disclosure standards. Just as you built processes for one framework, new requirements arrived. The recent EU Omnibus proposal to simplify timelines created fresh uncertainty about what applies when.

Research on sustainability professionals found the role demands expertise across technical knowledge, project management, and interpersonal skills. Many report feeling pulled in multiple directions without clarity on whether real progress is being made.

Solution: ESG platforms track regulatory changes and update frameworks accordingly. Workiva, Persefoni, and others alert companies to new obligations and provide materiality assessment tools with stakeholder survey templates and risk scoring frameworks.

This helps with knowing what to report. It does nothing for the actual work of collecting new data from colleagues who barely cooperated with previous requests, or explaining to executives why you need more resources for what they view as box-ticking.

The Budget Battle

You compete for resources against sales tools with clear revenue impact and operational technology with quantifiable efficiency gains. ESG software benefits are harder to express financially. Regulatory compliance avoids future penalties, but penalties often remain undefined.

Solution: Cloud models changed the conversation for sustainability managers. Rather than requesting $250,000 for implementation, you can seek $25,000 in annual fees. This shift from capital to operational expenditure faces less scrutiny.

Some platforms now provide ROI calculators translating time savings into financial terms. If you spend 200 hours per cycle on manual work, and platforms reduce that 60%, labor cost savings become calculable.

The business case has strengthened with mandatory reporting. CSRD compliance deadlines are real. External audit fees for ESG data without proper systems can exceed software costs. Framing platforms as audit preparation rather than sustainability initiatives proves more effective.

The Burnout Reality

A 2024 study found 63% of decision-makers admit feeling unprepared to meet ESG goals, while 94% of investors believe corporate reports contain unsupported claims. You sit in the middle, working impossible hours to produce reports nobody trusts, for compliance requirements that keep shifting.

The emotional toll is measurable. Until companies treat ESG data infrastructure as strategic priority worthy of proper resourcing, you will keep building elaborate Excel models while working 20-hour days.

What You Should Look For

When evaluating ESG software, focus on:

Integration capabilities: Does it connect with your existing ERP, HR, and facilities systems? Pre-built connectors matter more than feature lists.

Data collection automation: Can it actually pull data from source systems, or will you still be manually uploading spreadsheets?

Supplier engagement: Does it have tools to automate supplier data requests and track responses?

Regulatory tracking: Does it update automatically when frameworks change?

Implementation support: Does the vendor offer managed services to handle integration without consuming your IT resources?

The best platform is the one your colleagues will actually use and your IT department can realistically integrate. Technology can genuinely help. Whether your organization invests in making it work is a different question.

For sustainability managers preparing for CSRD and expanded requirements, the choice is not whether technology can help. It demonstrably can. The question is whether you can secure the executive sponsorship, cross-functional cooperation, IT prioritization, and change management resources to make implementation successful.

More importantly, it is about finding ways to shift ESG from compliance burden to strategic capability before sustainability managers burn out entirely.