Create an ESG Program

To help ease the data collection for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting, create an ESG Program.

ESG Program acts as the central hub for your ESG reporting, where you can curate:

• Files related to your reporting and data collection
• Topics that matter—or are material—to your reporting
• ESG Explorer content that aligns with data collection
• Data and values—or metrics—collected in source Spreadsheets for each topic

Step 1. Create an ESG Program

Tip: First things first! Before you create an ESG Program, know what topics to include. If you haven't yet, assess the materiality of topics and, from ESG Explorer, set up the frameworks you align with.

1. From ESG Program , select Program overview in the outline, and select Create ESG program from the menu.
   
2. Enter a unique name to identify the new Program.
   
3. Under Program files, add any files in the workspace related to the Program and its topics, such as:
   • Spreadsheets with source data or values that support the topics' metrics
   • Documents used to identify the Program's topics, such as materiality assessment or competitive research
   • Presentations, such as previous years' ESG reports
4. To restrict access to the Program, click Permissions , and select appropriate permissions for collaborators and groups.

Step 2. Set up the outline

ESG Program organizes the metrics values you disclose in ESG reporting based on their topics:

• Topics — which appear in bold in the outline — indicate the specific ESG factors that the ESG Program addresses and can categorize those factors by theme. For example, an Environmental topic may include more granular topics such as Energy and Waste, while a Social topic may include topics like Diversity & inclusion (D&I) and Human rights.
• Metrics enable data collection of values for each topic. For example, a Scope 1 emissions topic may have metrics to collect values to disclose for Stationary combustion, Mobile combustion, and Refrigerants.

Note: You can't rename or remove the default Program overview item in the outline.

To set up the hierarchy of ESG Program, add topics and their related metrics to the outline, and arrange them as necessary.

Tip: To ease scanning and help identify context, apply icons to topics and metrics in the outline.

When you add a metric, you can:

• Include context around its intent — such as related ESG Explorer content, reference attachments, and any custom tags — to meet your reporting needs.
• Apply a custom dimension — such as location or demographic — to enable multiple values, and set up the frequency of their data collection.
• Assign workspace members to prepare and approve values.
• Select to collect its values directly through ESG Program, a connected source file, or the streamlined Workiva Tasks.

Step 3. Send tasks to metric assignments

After you set up a topic's metrics, click Send tasks to begin their data collection. When you send the tasks, the assigned workspace members receive a notification to collect their values. You can manage your tasks from Home .

For more information, see Track data collection of ESG Program metrics.