ServiceNow introduces ESG solution

ServiceNow has introduced a new, integrated ESG solution powered by the Now Platform that helps companies activate ESG strategies, programs, and initiatives – from enhancing diversity and inclusion and reducing carbon emissions to enabling business resilience – across the enterprise. ServiceNow’s ESG solution combines the power of the Now Platform, new and existing products, and ServiceNow’s partner ecosystem to help organizations plan, manage, govern, and report on their ESG programs and initiatives to drive greater environmental, social, and business impact.

Companies are increasingly prioritizing ESG initiatives to help contribute to a more sustainable, equitable, and ethical world, build customer and stakeholder trust, and deliver successful business outcomes. According to recent studies, 88% of investors agree companies that prioritize ESG initiatives represent better opportunities for long-term returns than companies that do not, and global consumers are nearly five times more likely to trust, buy, champion, and protect companies with a strong ESG purpose.

Today’s ESG efforts are often ad hoc, siloed, and manual. The technology products currently available support discrete, disconnected ESG efforts, compounding the problem. At the same time, global ESG regulations continue to rapidly evolve: more than 170 ESG proposed regulatory measures have emerged since 2018, and 82 percent of investors believe companies are not prepared to comply with ESG reporting regulations. Companies must be able to connect their disparate ESG products and operational systems and support new and existing proposed regulatory requirements to scale their ESG efforts, meet their ESG goals, and support increasing stakeholder expectations for greater levels of transparency and disclosure. ServiceNow’s ESG solution, leveraging the single data model and single architecture of the Now Platform, helps companies accomplish these objectives.

“ESG is a top issue for the C-suite today. Leaders need better ways to plan, manage, govern, and report on their companies' investments toward a more sustainable, equitable, and ethical world,” said Gina Mastantuono, ServiceNow Chief Financial Officer. “With the power of the Now Platform, ServiceNow is well-suited as the strategic ESG platform partner for business, ultimately helping leaders gain operational control over their growing number of ESG initiatives to drive positive, lasting change globally.”

“In order for ESG initiatives to be effective, companies must have a complete view of their ESG efforts and performance to know how they are tracking towards their goals,” said Kim Knickle, Research Director at Verdantix. “We expect ServiceNow’s new ESG solution will leverage the company’s existing platform to better enable this visibility.” 

With its latest integrated ESG solution, ServiceNow is taking a holistic approach to help organizations drive impact and build greater customer, investor, and employee trust. Organizations can convert ESG goals into meaningful impact and create long-term value by innovating processes and delivering sustainable outcomes.

Delivering a unified solution for activating ESG across the enterprise

Harnessing the power of the Now Platform, ServiceNow’s new ESG solution serves as an operational control tower to help convert companies’ ESG goals into reality by providing visibility and transparency across their ESG programs and initiatives and helping them strategize, manage, govern, and report on these efforts on a single platform. Key components of ServiceNow’s integrated solution include:

• *NEW* ServiceNow ESG Management and Reporting enables companies to document material topics, establish goals and KPIs, track performance, collect and validate audit-ready data, and create disclosures that align with major ESG reporting frameworks.

• ServiceNow Project and Portfolio Management helps build and maintain a company’s ESG roadmap, including strategy, planning, and budgeting tools plus ongoing tracking of costs, resources, and results. Companies gain visibility into their ESG investments and improve the scale and impact of their ESG efforts.

• ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management provides core governance capabilities plus advanced risk assessments, continuous monitoring, AI, audits, privacy, automation, and more. It integrates ESG considerations and data into effective enterprise-wide risk and compliance management with a real-time view of ESG compliance and risk as well as rich analytics that improve decision making and business performance. 

These products work seamlessly with ServiceNow’s low-code tools and solutions such as Business Continuity Management, Vendor Risk Management, Security Operations,  Hardware Asset Management, and HR Service Delivery to generate even greater enterprise-wide ESG value and impact.     

Collaborating with the ServiceNow ecosystem to solve new and existing ESG challenges

ServiceNow’s ecosystem of partners, developers, customers, and other third parties will serve as a force multiplier for the ServiceNow ESG solution. Today ServiceNow also announced an expanded alliance with KPMG, where KPMG will serve as the lead launch partner for ServiceNow’s ESG solution. Both companies will work closely together to activate ESG across the enterprise for their joint customers, while also building new ESG workflows on the Now Platform to further extend the solution’s capabilities.

Through its Developer Program, ServiceNow is also mobilizing ISVs, as well as other third parties and customers, to create specialized ESG workflows that serve the unique requirements of various industries and geographies, address specific material issues, and extend ESG initiatives beyond the enterprise to the supply chain. For example:

• EcoVadis delivers a sustainability ratings platform to assess environmental, social, and ethical practices. By integrating EcoVadis with the ServiceNow Vendor Risk Management product, we can help customers consider third parties’ sustainability performance along with other types of risks – providing a comprehensive view of third-party risk.

• Watershed enables companies to measure, reduce, remove, and report their carbon emissions. Leading companies—including ServiceNow, Airbnb, DoorDash, Stripe, Shopify, and sweetgreen—are using Watershed on their path to get to zero carbon. By integrating with ServiceNow ESG Management and Reporting, companies can integrate their climate work into their overall ESG program, importing carbon metrics from Watershed into ServiceNow. 

• Reporting Standards Bodies are engaged with ServiceNow to integrate their standards into the ESG Management and Reporting product. For example, ServiceNow has already licensed the Value Reporting Foundation’s SASB Standards. And ServiceNow is currently in the process of requesting authorization to use the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards content in its ESG Management and Reporting solution before the end of the year. These product capabilities will enable companies to produce reporting and disclosures aligned with some of the most commonly used reporting standards.