This year promises to be no different, but how will your company navigate the CDP reporting process?
Jane’s Summer 2024
CDP project kick-off
Jane gets to the office early, having endured a stuffy rush-hour commute. It's Monday, June 10th. Steady predictions indicate that summer 2024 will easily break all European heat records. Jane brews her morning coffee and opens the new CDP online response system. She feels optimistic about her responsibility for managing her company's CDP response this year. With the first data collection meeting at 10 a.m. involving colleagues from various departments and regions, she exports the questionnaire and duplicates the spreadsheet. After the meeting, Jane feels uneasy despite the meeting’s success and high attendance. The summer collaboration effort looms large. The Board has made their expectations clear: improve the CDP score from last year. This year's results will gauge their preparedness for the new CSRD standards and is a defining performance indicator for Jane’s annual review.
Manual data collection
Jane feels proud of the significant obstacles her team has overcome to implement tangible performance improvements over the past year. She’s determined to publicly highlight the positive impact of their efforts on the environment by reporting this progress effectively. June and July quickly pass by. Jane and her team grapple with data gaps, unclear ownership of critical points, and poorly timed vacations. Nonetheless, they persist, finalising answers wherever the data suffices. They lean on 'Command F' to sift through emissions spreadsheets and internal documents, piecing snippets into coherent answers, one question after another.
Summer evenings at the office
By late August, Jane feels increasingly nervous about the timeline. She sends her fourth email of the day, seeking extra details from colleagues to align their answers with the CDP scoring guide. Half of her attempts are met with automated out-of-office replies. Jane's hope for an early submission dims as the September 18th deadline nears. The previous week consisted of several frustrating days lost and hairs pulled when a colleague accidentally deleted some responses without backup. The team works late each evening, racing to meet the deadline. Jane hurriedly filters through the master spreadsheet, refining answers for uniformity in style and tone. She forwards the finalized responses to their legal team in waves the moment they're ready.
Last minute submission
Jane reaches the office early on Tuesday, September 17th. It’s the eve of the reporting deadline. She is flooded with relief as she reads her CFO's email. They confirm that all responses have received the green light. The CEO is set to sign off and submit that morning. Jane celebrates crossing the finish line by checking in for her flight, ready for a brief respite from emails and spreadsheets. While excitedly packing up for her vacation that evening, Jane is nagged by her back of the napkin calculation on the number of hours they spent on manual data collection and response writing over the summer. Her mind switches briefly to their next similar project to collect and report on new CSRD-mandated data points. She wonders if other sustainability teams have found a better way to navigate this critical yet cumbersome reporting process. She recalls her friend Sara mentioning something about artificial intelligence at a conference in May; maybe she’ll give her a call when she’s back in the office.
Sara’s Summer 2024
CDP project kick-off
It’s a humid afternoon on June 6th, 2024. Sara appreciates the cool office air as she returns from lunch to plan their CDP reporting kickoff meeting. Sara looks over the new format and extra questions, unfazed by the updates. Confident, she believes this season will run smoother than last. She still felt the sting of their disappointing score, resulting from a frantic last-minute submission. After a highly engaged data collection kickoff meeting, Sara is excited to test her new CDP strategy.
Streamlined data collection
Having briefed everyone on the new process, she logs into the Fabasoft Oblivation application and invites her colleagues to create accounts. In some invitations, she includes reminders noting the files they are responsible for uploading. Sara carefully ensures that every question shown applies to their business. Satisfied with this sense-check, she assigns editing and approving tasks to members of her sustainability team and key contributors from other departments.
Data security guarantee
In just a few days, Sara uploads her required documents and files. As she waits for her team to upload theirs to the Fabasoft Cloud, she dedicates time to a crucial CSRD-alignment task. The risk management officer calls Sara, expressing concern about uploading their sensitive climate risk management documents to Fabasoft Cloud. Sara forwards Fabasoft's data security certifications and a summary of their clientele. This swiftly alleviates the concern. The following two weeks zip by with Sara closely monitoring the Fabasoft Oblivation app as it fills with relevant documents. She nudges the busiest team members with reminder emails, spurring them on. By the last Friday afternoon in June, Sara receives the final awaited confirmation from HR—all her requested documents are now uploaded. She reviews the overall document list a final time, then hits the ‘Start Indexing’ button before logging off and leaving for a well-deserved weekend.
Next generation CDP response process
On Monday morning, Sara settles at her desk with her favorite coffee mug in hand. She can't help but laugh softly in disbelief while navigating the Fabasoft Oblivation app, marveling at the auto-generated responses to the CDP questions, each meticulously citing the internal data sources used. As Sara assesses the quality of these answers, she delegates review tasks to her colleagues. She sets deadlines for them to refine the responses and forward them to the approval stage. Later that day, Sara notices the home screen speedometer indicating that only 78% of the questions are answered. She checks the filtered list of unanswered questions that require more data. For each question, Sara notes the relevant documents suggested by Fabasoft Oblivation and begins strategizing on their sources and contacts. Within the week, she invites more colleagues as contributors. They can supply data for these specific questions while she limits their access to the other documents and responses.
Audit trail
Sara and her team finish editing most responses and advance them to the approval phase by mid-July. They swiftly review and fix any errors using the auto-saved version history. With the bulk of answers awaiting approval and new data from contributors in hand, Sara can ‘Start Indexing’ again. This process auto-generates answers for remaining questions with newly added data. The next day, Sara gets a notification and email from Fabasoft Cloud: the indexing is complete, and the new answers are prepared. Relieved, she logs in and sees the Oblivation speedometer showing all questions answered. Sara reviews the updates and sets revised deadlines for editing. She reassigns several review tasks to herself to cover for two team members who are out-of-office.
Approval workflow
A further week into July, Sara and her team get all CDP responses to the approval phase. She sets ambitious deadlines for approval or feedback. Sara invites members of the legal team and the external auditors, enabling them to review responses directly in the application. They work quickly with the ability to review how the responses evolved, who made edits, and the data sources that contributed to the answers. Sara feels satisfied watching the Oblivation app fill with green highlights, each one representing a fully approved answer. On Thursday, August 1st, Sara logs in to assess the progress. The Oblivation pie chart shows that all answers are approved and ready for export. She eagerly exports from Oblivation and then imports the CDP-formatted spreadsheet into their online response system. Upon her return from lunch, the answers are populated. She dedicates the afternoon to ensuring every detail is correctly imported and verifying they are ready to submit.
Confident early submission
In a final alignment meeting the next week, Sara confidently briefs the executives on the thorough approval process and audit trail Fabasoft Oblivation provides for each CDP response. She comfortably assures them that their grade will improve upon last year. By Thursday evening, August 8th, Sara is thrilled to receive an email: the CEO has completed their final sign-off in the CDP portal. Submitting their responses nearly six weeks early—a feat she hadn't anticipated—means her vacation is still a comfortable distance away. Walking out of the office at dusk that summer evening, Sara is enveloped in a sense of calm. She finds the project's smooth conclusion amusingly low-key compared to the previous year's down-to-the-wire chaos. She is grateful for all the strategic initiatives they have implemented at her company over the past years. It feels satisfying to report a significant contribution to the climate transition by aligning their commercial and net-zero strategies. Her mind now wanders to her ongoing CSRD data collection and reporting project. She wonders whether they can leverage Fabasoft Oblivation to streamline that process, as they did for CDP this summer.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading this introduction to Fabasoft Oblivation. If you can relate to Jane’s summer challenges, let’s make your summer 2024 look like Sara’s instead:
- Use AI search to cut manual data collection for CDP.
- Use Generative AI to write your CDP answers with references.
- Assign tasks for edits and approvals, with deadlines and reminders.
- Manage it all securely Fabasoft Cloud, trusted by over 1000 organizations.
Don’t wait for the reporting rush. Click here to book your demo now. We’re excited to partner with you on this journey.
