The ESG Reporting Challenge
A large REIT (Real estate investment trust), focused on the healthcare sector, has focused on ESG reporting as a critical component of its corporate responsibility and strategy for over a decade.
For their 10th annual ESG Report, they wanted to better understand their environmental impact by connecting the dots between invoices and services. This required seamlessly combining accurate waste & recycling tonnage reporting and ESG emissions into one report, while reducing their time and resource commitment.
The Solution: DSQ Technology as an Ally
The REIT's goal was to create a highly accurate 2022 ESG Report, using foundational data, sourced directly from its 270+ healthcare facilities. The REIT relied on DSQ's Professional Services and DSQ's experience in waste analysis in the healthcare section to coordinate and produce the data set for the report.
Twelve months of invoices from every property in their portfolio, across multiple management companies, were retrieved by the REIT and sent to DSQ Technology. With Discovery’s automated extraction tools, 1500 of the 2500 tonnage data points were easily pulled into the dataset using Discovery. This massively decreased the time spent organizing data versus previous manual efforts. The remaining 1000 tonnage data points were drawn from vendor-supplied Excel reports.
To complete the dataset and fully understand each location’s environmental impact, DSQ further investigated any service level information not provided on the invoice—initially identified as affecting 25% of the locations in the portfolio. DSQ drew out of the invoice data 90% of the missing service level information. The REIT was able to contact their vendors to track down the required service level detail for the handful of remainder locations, resulting in the most complete and accurate dataset to power the 2022 ESG Report.
The ESG Reporting Results
The REIT's 2022 ESG Report was built with the power of invoice line-item extraction automation, eliminating manual data entry and producing more accurate data. The improved accuracy of the report showed a 35% decrease in its GHG emissions over 10 years. DSQ's streamlined process of producing this dataset will save the REIT countless hours when it produces future reporting.
Key ESG reporting highlights:
- ~500 data points provided automatically: Vendor account numbers were collected and recorded in connection with service levels. This simple data point alone—captured accurately and automatically—represents an additional ~500 data points provided automatically versus 2021.
- More data, more accurately captured = more accurate reporting: A property-level log was also created and served as a repository for addtional or ancillary property-level information relevant to waste and recycling.
DSQ Technology's Professional Services
DSQ’s Professional Services provides the expertise and technology to go beyond what your internal team may have the time or skills to do internally. Combining years of knowledge with powerful automation tools provides insightful and actionable reports, as well as an understanding of the environmental impacts of waste and recycling.
For more insights into how DSQ Technology's waste management software can help you report and maximize value in your business, explore our Professional Services.
