Prepare: Consider what your sustainability report might containand identify your major impacts. Develop an action plan and hold a kick-off meeting.

Connect: Identify your key stakeholders and talk to them to find out what the stakeholders consider to be the major sustainability topics your organization should manage and on which to report. 

Define: Based on your stakeholder engagement, conduct an internal assessment with top management. This will indicate the topics for your report that are most important both internally and externally. Consider your organization’s scope of influence, capacity and commitment. This will help how your activities will be covered in the report. 

Monitor: Check processes and systems, monitor activities and report data insuring the quality of information. Set performance goals and follow up.

Report: Write your report and communicate it.Having covered the 5 steps an organization will have all the resources in place to keep monitoring performance so it can constantly manage its sustainability impacts and report its sustainability progress. One of the major obstacles for a company is collecting and publishing reliable data from various heads under the corporation. In this regard, an automated system can greatly help diminish the annual burden of gathering and compiling data for the sustainability reporting. It can provide the ever-growing community of potential investors with non-financial but relevant data that gives the organization a competitive edge.