Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) data is essential for providing transparency to investors and stakeholders, building trust with customers and employees, ensuring regulatory compliance, and identifying opportunities to improve operational efficiency.
But collecting ESG data is no small task. ESG metrics cover everything from energy usage and emissions to pay equity and board diversity, often spread across different departments, systems, and suppliers. Without carefully chosen metrics and a clearly defined process, organizations risk ending up with incomplete or inconsistent information that falls short of its purpose.
In this guide, we’ll help you answer two key questions:
Toward that end, we’ll highlight common metrics across environmental, social, and governance categories, and we’ll walk through a six-step process for building a reliable ESG data collection program.
Common ESG data
ESG reporting is built around three categories of data and initiatives: environmental, social, and governance. Each highlights a different aspect of how an organization operates, and together they provide stakeholders and the public with a comprehensive view of performance.
We’ll take a look at some of the most common examples of ESG metrics under each pillar. You won’t need to capture all of them yourself, but this survey of the ESG data landscape should serve as a useful reference point for what’s possible.
Later on, we’ll explain how to perform a materiality assessment to narrow down the specific ESG data that’s most relevant for your business to capture.
Environmental metrics
Environmental data is often the most visible and tightly regulated component of sustainability reporting. These metrics capture how an organization impacts the natural world, from the resources it consumes to the emissions it generates.
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
Measuring emissions is central to ESG reporting, since greenhouse gases are the primary driver of climate change. Emissions are categorized into three scopes: Scope 1 (direct emissions from owned or controlled sources), Scope 2 (indirect emissions from purchased energy), and Scope 3 (all other indirect emissions across the value chain). For comparability across gases, organizations report them in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e).
Energy consumption
Energy use is a major source of emissions and a key indicator of efficiency. Tracking total kilowatt-hours consumed, as well as how much of that comes from renewable versus non-renewable sources, demonstrates progress toward decarbonization and cost savings.
Water use
Water availability is a growing concern, especially for businesses that operate in regions prone to drought or water scarcity. Monitoring the number of liters or cubic meters consumed helps organizations assess risk and manage their usage.
Waste generation & diversion
Waste metrics measure both how much waste is produced and also how effectively it’s managed. Organizations often track tons or cubic meters of solid, hazardous, wastewater, and radioactive waste, along with diversion rates to show how much material is being recycled, reused, or otherwise prevented from reaching landfills.
Air pollution
Air pollutants contribute to both environmental damage and human health risks. Beyond greenhouse gases, organizations may need to account for emissions such as particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) and sulfur dioxide (SO2), which are common indicators of local air quality impacts.
Resource efficiency
Resource efficiency reflects how well a company minimizes the use of raw materials relative to output. Common approaches include measuring the material input required per unit of output (like kilograms of raw material per product manufactured) and reporting the percentage of recycled materials incorporated into production.
Biodiversity & land use
Organizations may report on how their operations affect ecosystems, habitats, and biodiversity. This can include tracking hectares of land used or deforested, areas preserved through conservation efforts, or biodiversity impact scores where available.
Social metrics
The social pillar of ESG looks at how an organization interacts with people, including employees, customers, and the broader community. These metrics show whether a company is fostering equity, safety, and well-being across its operations.
Workforce diversity
Workforce diversity measures how well an organization reflects the demographics of the society in which it operates. Companies often report on overall representation by gender, race, and other identity factors, as well promotion rates and leadership diversity to show whether opportunities are equitable throughout the organization.
Gender pay gap
The gender pay gap captures pay equity by comparing average compensation for men and women performing equivalent work. Reporting this ratio demonstrates whether employees are being compensated fairly regardless of gender.
Living wages
Living wage metrics assess whether employees’ compensation is adequate to cover local costs of living. Organizations may benchmark average pay against regional living wage standards to ensure workers are earning sustainable incomes.
Employee health & safety
Employee health and safety metrics track how effectively an organization protects workers on the job. Common measures include recordable incident rates, lost-time injuries, and certifications or investments in workplace safety programs.
Training & development
Companies may track workforce training hours, participation in upskilling programs, and access to professional development opportunities to demonstrate their commitment to long-term employee growth.
Employee engagement & turnover
Engagement metrics like survey scores and net promoter scores measure employees’ sense of connection to their work and employer. Paired with retention rates and voluntary turnover, they reveal whether employees feel supported and motivated to stay.
Human rights
Human rights data reflects whether organizations uphold ethical practices across their operations and supply chains. This can include the presence or absence of reported violations, adherence to labor standards, and monitoring practices to ensure suppliers don’t engage in forced or child labor.
Community impact
Community impact metrics highlight the positive contributions an organization makes to its places of operation. These include things like charitable donations, volunteer participation, or investments in local economic development projects.
Governance metrics
Governance describes how a company is directed and controlled. Strong governance metrics show that leadership is accountable, transparent, and committed to ethical business practices.
Board composition & diversity
Board metrics measure whether leadership reflects a balance of perspectives and independence. Organizations often report on the demographic diversity of directors, their areas of expertise, and the degree of independence to ensure the board can provide effective oversight without conflicts of interest.
Executive compensation
Executive pay is analyzed for how well it aligns with company performance and fulfilment of stakeholder expectations. Companies may also disclose the ratio of executive pay to median employee pay, and whether compensation packages incorporate progress toward ESG goals alongside financial outcomes.
Shareholder rights
Shareholder rights metrics assess the degree of transparency and influence investors have in corporate governance. This includes voting rights, protections for minority shareholders, and mechanisms for meaningful participation in decision making.
Business ethics
Business ethics reporting demonstrates whether a company has effective measures in place to prevent misconduct. Common indicators include anti-corruption policies, whistleblower protections, and disclosures of conflicts of interest among executives and board members.
Compliance
Compliance metrics track adherence to applicable laws, regulations, and standards. Organizations may report on audit results, regulatory certifications, and evidence of effective compliance management systems.
Risk management
Risk management indicators cover how well an organization identifies and mitigates both financial and non-financial risks. This includes reporting on internal controls, cybersecurity safeguards, and broader enterprise risk management frameworks.
Vendor & supply chain performance
Governance also extends into oversight of suppliers and third parties. Companies may assess vendor ESG performance, monitor sustainability risks in their supply chains, and require partners to disclose their own ESG practices.
How to collect ESG data
To capture ESG data effectively, you need a structured process that ensures the information is reliable and actionable. Without that structure, organizations risk ending up with disconnected datasets that may look impressive but don’t translate into valuable insights or informed decisions. A deliberate approach focuses on identifying the most relevant data, validating its accuracy, organizing it effectively, and applying it in meaningful ways.
1. Establish ownership and governance
The first step in collecting ESG data is to define clear roles and responsibilities. Everyone involved should understand who owns each part of the process, from gathering supplier information to verifying and preparing reports. With this clarity, data collection stays consistent and prioritized. Without it, ESG initiatives can stall, leading to gaps, duplication, or incomplete datasets.
Oversight usually starts at the top. A board-level ESG committee or similar governing body sets the direction, with executive sponsors ensuring alignment to business strategy. Day-to-day accountability typically rests with a Chief Data Officer (CDO) or equivalent, who manages ESG data and ensures it remains accurate and accessible.
At the department level, individual ESG data coordinators collect and organize data, while also ensuring cross-functional collaboration. They serve as points of contact within their functions, making sure the data integrates seamlessly into the organization-wide process.
2. Determine what ESG data to collect
Most organizations don’t need to capture every ESG data point from the long list of possible metrics we covered. Doing so would waste resources and risk shifting focus away from the data that matters most. Instead, the goal is to identify which ESG issues are most relevant to your business and prioritize those for consistent tracking. This is accomplished through a materiality assessment.
The materiality assessment maps out a matrix comparing the potential impact of different ESG initiatives on your operations (such as regulatory exposure, cost savings, or supply chain resilience) against the importance of those issues to investors, customers, employees, and communities. The topics that rise to the top of both dimensions are your material priorities—the areas where data collection will deliver the most value for decision making and reporting.
For example, you can use a simple 2×2 matrix to map ESG topics by business impact and stakeholder importance. Issues like carbon emissions might land in the high–high quadrant, while lower-priority efforts would fall into the low–low quadrant. This kind of visual framework helps distinguish between initiatives that should drive your data collection strategy and those that can remain secondary.
| High importance to stakeholders | Low importance to stakeholders | |
| High impact on business | Carbon emissions, workforce safety measures | Water usage in non-scarce regions, fleet maintenance efficiency |
| Low impact on business | Community volunteer hours, charitable donations | Office supply recycling programs, employee carpool incentives |
Once you’ve identified your material priorities, the next step is to align them with established reporting frameworks. Standards like GRI, SASB, CDP, and ESRS offer guidance on which metrics to track and how to define them. Using these frameworks keeps your KPIs comparable across industries, while also helping you meet regulatory requirements and investor expectations.
3. Identify ESG data sources
With your priorities defined, you’ll need to pinpoint where your ESG data will come from. ESG data comes from a wide variety of sources, so we’ll take a look at examples under each of the three pillars: environmental, social, and governance.
Environmental data sources
Environmental metrics, like greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, water consumption, and waste production, require consistent and reliable measurement. Utility bills are often a primary source for tracking electricity, water usage, and emissions. IoT sensors, meters, and other tools can provide more data points for real-time monitoring. Supplier engagement also play an important role, since much of a company’s environmental footprint extends across the value chain.
Social data sources
Social metrics cover areas like workforce diversity, pay equity, employee well-being, and community engagement. Much of this information comes from HR systems, payroll records, and other internal sources. Employee surveys provide additional insight into engagement and workplace culture. And external inputs include things like community feedback and third-party labor reports.
Governance data sources
Governance metrics focus on corporate structure, ethical practices, and compliance. Common sources include board and committee records, executive compensation reports, and corporate policies on issues like anti-corruption or conflicts of interest. Companies may also draw on things like shareholder meeting minutes, tax disclosures, and vendor compliance reports.
4. Organize ESG data with a centralized platform
To collect ESG data at scale, you need the right structure in place to capture, manage, and share it. Without a centralized system, data collection quickly becomes inconsistent, duplicated, or siloed across departments. It’s extremely difficult to gain actionable insights from the data when it’s scattered and fragmented.
The goal is to establish a single source of truth for each major category ESG data, where environmental, social, and governance metrics are stored in accessible locations. It requires consolidating inputs from both internal departments and external partners, standardizing definitions and collection methods, and assigning clear ownership for validation and updates.
This kind of work shouldn’t be done completely by hand. The complexity of ESG data inputs demands an automated solution to manage and track them effectively. Manual workflows simply can’t keep pace with the scale of ESG reporting, especially across multiple facilities, suppliers, or geographies. A purpose-built platform is essential.
Tango Energy & Sustainability was built for the realities of large, complex organizations. It pulls together disparate energy consumption inputs into a centralized platform, where automated processes and intuitive dashboards allow you to monitor, validate, and analyze all of your energy data. Advanced analytics help track consumption trends, flag anomalies, and forecast future usage to anticipate peak demand and optimize costs.
Organizing your energy data in Tango from the start creates a strong foundation for efficient, reliable, and audit-ready ESG reporting.
5. Collect and validate ESG data
Now that you’ve defined ownership, identified which ESG metrics to track in your materiality assessment, mapped out where the data will come from, and set up a centralized source of truth, it’s time to actually start collecting the data.
If you’re using an automated energy and sustainability management software solution like Tango, this process is straightforward. Just connect your various inputs, and the system does the heavy lifting of gathering, organizing, and managing everything in one place.
And validation is just as important as collection. Unverified or inconsistent data can undermine ESG reporting, leaving gaps that compromise both compliance and decision making. Tango automatically audits incoming data, flagging duplicate entries, missing information, or billing errors before they skew your results.
This results in greater accuracy along with significant time savings. Instead of hunting down mistakes, reconciling reports, and repeating manual work, your teams can focus on analysis, strategy, and delivering on ESG goals—all while having confidence in the data their work relies on. And when it comes time to validate your data with third-party audits, you can dramatically reduce these costs by showing them where to focus their attention.
6. Put your ESG data to work
Once your ESG data starts flowing in, you can use it to generate actionable insights, meet compliance obligations, and advance your sustainability goals.
With Tango, you can monitor energy and emissions in real time—establishing baselines and tracking progress toward net zero or other sustainability goals. Dashboards and detailed reports give you a clear view of KPIs, while advanced visualizations like heat maps and daily or monthly profiles show exactly when and how facilities consume energy. This makes it easy to spot anomalies like unexpected startup times or weekend demand spikes, so you can correct inefficiencies quickly and capture savings.
Tango also streamlines compliance, automatically generating reports aligned with reporting frameworks like GRESB and CDP. And built-in carbon accounting ensures your Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions are measured and disclosed accurately.
By putting ESG data to work through Tango, organizations can boost efficiency, strengthen resilience, and gain a competitive edge, all while building credibility and trust with stakeholders.
Make the most of your ESG data with Tango
ESG data collection doesn’t have to be overwhelming. With the right structure, you can turn scattered information into a single source of truth that drives compliance, transparency, and long-term value for your business.
Tango brings all your energy data together in one automated platform, consolidating inputs from across your organization and beyond. Advanced analytics help you detect anomalies, forecast usage, and optimize costs, while intuitive dashboards make it easy to track KPIs and measure progress toward sustainability goals.
Want to see what Tango Energy & Sustainability can do for you?
