Environmental, social & governance reporting with dashboards : Design patterns for Small and Medium Enterprises

Abstract

Lots of organisations are struggling with turning data into management information nowadays. Especially within SMEs, there is much to be gained in the field of business intelligence. In addition, themes such as ESG and sustainability are becoming increasingly important in today's society, especially with the upcoming CSDR legislation. The aim of this research therefore is to establish a way to map the ESG factors in a BI dashboard, in particular for SMEs. The research approach adopted in this dissertation includes design science in order to create an ESG dashboard framework for SMEs. The findings from this research provide evidence that SMEs desire a framework tailored to their specific characteristics and needs. Furthermore, it appeared that SMEs have other priorities regarding documentation, monitoring and reporting then large organisations. Therefore is reporting at the same disclosure level as larger organisations irrelevant and beyond their scopes. SMEs cannot easily obtain all the information required for the CSDR and are questioning its relevance for their organisation.