SUSTAINABILITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS | Major Sustainability

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS & SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability Management Systems:
Data-Driven Responsible Performance

Many firms have implemented sustainability management systems (SMS), management programs requiring information systems to monitor, evaluate, improve, and communicate environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance including information baselines on inputs (energy, water, materials, etc.) and outputs (waste, emissions, etc.).

SMS systems can:

Track and analyze corporate waste generation and diversion rates
Measure energy consumption at various scales and calculate Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions (not familiar with “scopes” of emissions?)
Water consumption and discharges
Many also track environmental health and safety data, diversity data, compensation equity data and more

Examples of Sustainability Management Systems Providers

Companies choose to custom build sustainability management systems or work with a third-party service provider like Figbytes, OneTrust (shown below) or others. MIS professionals are a key stakeholder and often are co-leaders of efforts to develop such systems ensuring they are interoperable with other information systems within the enterprise that manage assets, energy, budget, financial and human resource information.

Case Study: Lowe’s Tracks Responsible Performance

Lowe’s was one of the first companies to understand the business purpose for sustainability and gained early attention for stances against deforestation and for protecting tropical rain forests.

Today Lowe’s sustainability work has grown in sophistication and reviewing the outputs from their sustainability management system is instructive.

See Lowe’s Sustainability Performance Data

Imagine how Lowe’s MIS professionals and an array of IT systems are involved in tracking their sustainability performance across 2,000 locations with 300,000 employees driving annual revenues over $70 billion annually.