To help organizations prepare for environmental compliance in light of a recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruling on corporate sustainability reporting requirements, Oracle introduced new capabilities in Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Monitoring (EPM) aimed at addressing environmental data management and sustainability reporting.

While there are other tech companies offering sustainability data management tools, those solutions only address “narrow aspects of the sustainability reporting process,” Oracle Group VP of Product Management Hari Sankar told SDxCentral. “We are one of few vendors that offer a holistic solution that not only enables organizations to collect and report on sustainability data, but also the ability to model and plan ahead for sustainability initiatives,” Sankar said.

Specifically, Oracle’s new sustainability tool helps enterprises manage environmental impact data gathered from external and internal systems and data sources.

“As environmental, social and governance (ESG) data comes from various sources — within an organization and from the network of suppliers and service providers — and in different forms,” Sankar said, the tool’s data model is designed to handle a diverse range of data, including energy consumption, fleet mileage, workforce data and supplier spend.

In addition, Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM’s data processing and transformation capabilities allow for quick integration of additional consumption data, metadata or currency and unit conversions. The tool also provides flexible mapping for scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and links activity data to adjustable emissions factors for carbon accounting and reporting purposes.

These new capabilities are based on input from Oracle’s own sustainability practitioners and “extensive customer interactions,” according to Sankar. “This is a significantly enhanced solution designed from the ground up to support sustainability reporting, analysis and planning” with “a foundational approach to sustainability analytics and planning processes,” he said.

Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM also takes advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) insights and pattern recognition for automatic alerts on anomalies and variances. “This user-facing insight component is designed for easy adoption — it’s an embedded capability that does not require any AI or data science expertise on the part of the user,” Sankar said.

Sustainability leaders can use the tool’s automated analysis to monitor progress and take appropriate action. In addition, the tool’s predictive models build data-driven forecasts for various sustainability metrics, which “complement and improve user-generated estimates,” he said.

These embedded scenario modeling capabilities are designed to teach leaders the impacts of their decisions and how choices affect the organization’s overall environmental impact. This knowledge “gives business leaders control over an unlimited number of initiatives, scenarios and versions,” Sankar said.

“This type of forward-looking planning of sustainability initiatives using scenario modeling is essential for the predictable attainment of sustainability goals. Otherwise, businesses will just be reporting on misses against targets using rear-view analytics,” he said.

Rather than producing customized spreadsheets, scenario modeling can create long-range forecasts and compare multiple alternatives simultaneously. “For example, when planning for a new production facility, the project team can evaluate various options for supplying power to the facility — using multiple combinations of renewable energy sources and fossil fuels — and also consider scenarios where emissions are partially or fully offset through the purchase of carbon credits,” he said.