Despite tight economic conditions, environmental sustainability remains a priority for CEOs and senior business leaders. To prepare for increasing regulatory reporting requirements, one area of low-hanging fruit is the impact of large employee bases and the work they do on the company’s behalf.

But most digital workplace tools (subscription required) only focus on the device power consumption aspect of the workforce, which represents just 15% of digital workplace emissions.

By 2027, Gartner analysts predict a majority (80%) of digital workplace leaders will integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) management into their digital workplace tools. That expectation demonstrates a significant leap from today, where just 5% of digital workplace leaders are integrating ESG management and reporting tools with digital workplace software.

Growing regulatory requirements for corporate sustainability reporting from the E.U. and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are a major driver of this expected change, according to Gartner.

Earlier this month, the SEC ruled on a softer version of its initial corporate climate-related disclosures proposal. The rule’s compliance requirements span greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting for scope 1 and scope 2 emissions, but only in areas deemed material, or relevant, to the reporting company.

The SEC’s new rule requires that large, publicly-traded companies reach compliance by 2026. Mid-sized publicly-traded companies have until 2028. The SEC estimates the rule will impact 2,800 organizations in the United States and 540 international companies.

“ESG leaders will expect IT to provide digital solutions that improve business sustainability as well as enhanced reporting from IT to meet regulatory requirements, which must be normalized and centralized into ESG management and reporting software,” Gartner VP analyst Stuart Downes said.

Decision-making support and analytics capabilities integrated with existing workplace software, for example, will help IT teams identify opportunities to advance their sustainability initiatives.

In particular, the amount of devices and peripherals for each employee will be an early area where organizations can measure and optimize their carbon emissions. “Organizations should work with tool vendors by prioritizing new capabilities to measure and report the sustainability data that ESG leaders require,” Downes said.

To prepare for this uptick in demand for ESG management integrations, digital workplace infrastructure tool vendors should prioritize developing environmental sustainability reporting features, including unified endpoint management tools, desktop-as-a-service tools, digital employee experience management tools and digital platform conductors.

Focusing on these environmental sustainability capabilities will enable players throughout the ecosystem to reduce costs as device lifespans lengthen and meet upcoming energy regulation requirements, according to analysts.