Hi there all! Ask some of you may know we recently hosted an Ask Me Anything session on Sustainability Management, specifically - ESRS / ISSB Intelligence and the Sustainability Disclosure Agent. We wanted to share the wealth of knowledge learned with this Community crew! Below, you can find the Q&A from the session!

What AI is available specifically for Sustainability Reporting?

For a general overview of Workiva AI for Sustainability Reporting, check out this Community post!

How to set up first:

• Open Workiva AI chat (sparkle icon :sparkles: in the toolbar)
• Click Add → Knowledge base → select ESRS (for ESRS v1 / Delegated Act 2023) and/or Simplified ESRS (ESRS v2)

Prompt Drafting Tips

• Be specific: include the standard name, disclosure reference, or your data topic
• Ask one question at a time for cleaner responses
• Use @[file name] in the prompt to ground AI responses in your actual Sustainability Program content
• Ask Workiva AI to "generate the prompt for me" if you're unsure how to phrase it

What are the 'Anticipated Financial Effects' (ESRS E1-9 & IFRS S2):

We often get questions about how AI handles forward-looking financial impacts.

• Scoring vs. Modeling: The Sustainability Disclosure Agent checks for regulatory completeness—evaluating whether you have addressed time horizons, affected assets, and transition CapEx—but it will never fabricate sensitive forward-looking financial numbers. Where figures are missing, it provides bracketed tags so your finance and risk teams can insert verified data.

• Relief Awareness: Both standards offer transition off-ramps (the 'undue cost or effort' relief in ISSB and the multi-year phase-ins in ESRS). The Agent recognizes qualitative-only disclosures under these relief provisions rather than treating them as non-compliant gaps.

I'm looking for more information on tracking / connecting / updating the old with the actual datapoints within ESRS. What are the differences between ESRS 2023 and ESRS 2026 and how can Workiva AI support?

Revised ESRS assets like Transition Accelerator can be used to update old Program Metrics to Revised ESRS metrics. Download these assets from the Workiva Marketplace, this asset will provide a comparison of the different versions, identifying what changed, and use your identified metrics to determine what actions you need to take with Revised ESRS, then create an output that will allow you to easily import these updates to your program.

Here is a helpful Community Post on the topic!

I would like to see how Disclosure Agent can streamline ESRS/ISSB alignment.

Disclosure Agent works by selecting copy in your report, then click the Workiva AI sparkle to select "Draft disclosure" The Agent walks you through selecting a Framework, and Requirements. Select one section at a time to create disclosures for each requirement.

Ensuring the compliance with a new standard (ESRS)

We provide a Gap Assessment template that can be used with the results of materiality assessment results for our CSRD and ISSB Add ons.

Suggested additional prompts

• "Based on the ESRS framework, summarize the disclosure requirements for [standard, e.g., ESRS S1: Own Workforce] and identify criteria I should use to assess whether my current data collection covers each datapoint."
•  "I am performing a gap assessment for [topic]. List all mandatory and voluntary datapoints under [standard] and indicate what data type (qualitative/quantitative) is required for each."
•  "What guidance does ESRS provide for identifying partial gaps versus full gaps in reporting [disclosure reference]?"

I'm curious if the disclosure agent is available to customers that don't have ESRS/ISSB reporting

 Disclosure Agent is available to use for ESRS and ISSB frameworks currently. The ESRS framework for Sustainability requires the CSRD add-on. ISSB is available for all Sustainability Standard and Advanced customers who have Workiva AI. Contact your Workiva Account team to discuss adding any frameworks your require.