From Maze to Amazing

Getting a clear picture of your current level of sustainability will thrill your customers and satisfy regulators. And we’ve already explained how you can get started with just two data points and a plan to dig deeper. But how can you turn a maze of data and systems into an amazing overview of all your sustainability needs, opportunities, and requirements? With the right partner, the right tools, and the right approach, you can become a master of your data and all it can provide. Sustainable ShelfMaster can help.

Off to the right start

Without question, any journey towards clear and compliant sustainability reporting begins with some basic business ethics. At all costs, you must avoid misleading claims and ensure that any reporting system you set up aligns with the expectations of your customers, and of the regulators who are monitoring your sector. The only way to avoid the dreaded ‘greenwashing’ label is to be transparent about where you are and demonstrate your commitment to improve. And that starts with data.

The only way to avoid the ‘greenwashing’ label is to be transparent. And that starts with data.

You can start your sustainability monitoring and reporting with nothing more than your product name and product category. This will yield what we call a ‘low-confidence score’, but it’s a solid start all the same. We offer the methodology to get meaningful insights from those two data points by providing data enrichment, estimation models, and external datasets. You can estimate your scores based on key metrics using your existing operational data. You’ll be able to do:

Carbon Footprint Approximation to fill in gaps in your supply chain data
Energy & Resource Consumption Mapping using your energy bills, logistics data, or sales records
Sustainability Maturity Assessments to benchmark your policies, emissions, and resource usage against industry averages and identify the missing data points you need to be compliant

Even with limited data, you can still gain valuable insights in Sustainable ShelfMaster. You can, for example, create automated data collection pipelines and auto-generated reporting. Using industry norms, you can uncover early energy-efficiency improvements. And even if you don’t provide full visibility into your Scope 3 emissions, the platform can suggest energy-efficient shipping routes. With minimal data, you can already estimate key sustainability metrics and pave a path towards your next level of data maturity and collection.

Connecting the dots

Still, estimations won’t take you where you need to go. Getting to the ‘next level’ – increasing the confidence of your calculations and reporting more effectively – is a matter of connection. The majority of companies struggle to collect all the necessary data to enable this reporting. Data is fragmented across many different – often on-premises and legacy – systems. Your ERP, CRM and PIM weren’t designed for sustainability reporting, and your eCommerce, MDM and CDP systems may be a challenge to connect to sustainability platforms. That’s why the solution needs to be part tech, part strategy, and part expert advice.

Sustainable ShelfMaster blends tech, strategy, and insight into a single platform. Whether your system is cloud-based or on-premises, we’ll create a data experience layer for centralized sustainability data processing. With the right technologies, APIs and middleware, we’ll connect all those disconnected systems and pull out the data needed for your reporting and apply it for all those green labels and marketing opportunities.

Another key element for clear reporting is to organize your data so that it can be set up for each report, certification or labelling activity. This crucial step helps to standardize data across all of those different calculations and helps prevent inconsistencies. VML can help you create a well-defined data setup that determines all of the elements needed for a calculation, ensures seamless reporting, accurate display of eco-labels, and a single source of data truth across your organization.

Which roadmap is yours?

Even if you do get all your data ducks in a row, and connect all your systems for clear reporting, there’s another hurdle to overcome. Sustainability metrics differ across sectors, and even differ depending on the purpose of the calculation. For each country in which you distribute your products, there is a different set of requirements and regulations. In some cases, those regulations are still being written.

Keeping track of all those moving parts is a challenge, but we can make it easier. Together with our partners, we’ll ensure your system is equipped with specific requirements and is pulling the right data sets to comply with the standards. We work with experts in the field to ensure your system is always up to date and your calculations are done according to the metrics that apply for your sector.

Keeping track of all those moving parts is a challenge, but we can make it easier.

Then there’s the challenge of all the different scores and what they mean. Sustainability scoring involves aggregating all that data, normalizing it, and applying weighted scoring models to generate insights. Sustainable ShelfMaster is fully scalable. You can add different calculation models for all your ESG goals and reporting needs. Your emissions-based Carbon Footprint Score, your lifecycle-based Product Sustainability Score, your Supply Chain Sustainability Score, your Corporate ESG Score that gives you a holistic view of your business, and all the calculations required for green labels, badges and marketing needs.

Getting a clear view

VML knows that non-techies also play a key role. Team members who aren’t data-minded will benefit from the platform’s simple, clear visualizations. We can generate dashboards with color-coded indicators that express whether the data or score is good (green), needs improvement (yellow) or is poor (red).

Team members who aren’t data-minded will benefit from the platform’s simple, clear visualizations.

The platform also generates statements and charts that help you visualize where you stand as compared to industry averages, and enables you to create labels and badges that will announce your successes to your customers. It helps you create Impact Breakdowns for internal use, or to build your product feature lists with insights like ‘producing this product emits 20% less CO2 than the industry average’.

Teaming up for success

Make no mistake about it – the journey to a more sustainable company and effective reporting is a tough one. And it will require real commitment from your company. Although we wish it was as simple as plug-and-play, the complex issue of transparency in this domain will not allow for that. It requires the right mix of strategy and technology. Of internal teams and external support. A strong and complete initial set-up, and a long-term commitment to maintenance and updates. Much more a marathon than a sprint, the process for getting your systems ready for a sustainable future may be long, but you can take it step by step.

And, when you’re ready, we can even help you automate the entire process with real-time data collection, constant sensor-based monitoring, and automated reporting systems that can make things even more straightforward, accurate, and indisputable. Everything we offer, but in an automated system that’s constantly updating and creating up-to-the-minute insights.

And, when you’re ready, we can even help you automate the entire process.

Get started today

It’s a long road ahead. And you may be running out of time. Before you know it, your customers will move on to a different brand, and regulators will be demanding more transparency and clarity. We can’t do it for you, but we can make the journey much more pleasant and ensure that every step you take is in the right direction, for the right reason.

How close are those new regulations that will impact your business? Stay tuned. In the next article, we’ll explain the urgency. From CSRD to Digital Product Passports, your quick action can mean the difference between emerging as a sustainability champion, or getting pushed aside in the race to the top.