IFS Cloud Tackles ESG Reporting and the Circular Economy

IFS has unveiled update 23R2 of its ERP Cloud. The main addition is a duo of features linked to ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance criteria) and sustainable development with Cloud Emissions Tracker – to calculate a company’s emissions, and Cloud ESG Lobby – a dashboard on environmental, social and governance reporting.

Most of the data necessary to calculate EGS indicators is already in IFS Cloud, its SaaS ERP launched in 2021 which integrates ERP, HCM, CRM,EAM and FSM, insists Caitlin Keam, ESG product manager at the publisher. This information ranges from consumption data (from invoices) to financial data, including employee data, she adds.

“The [ESG] reporting requirements and regulations, like CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) in Europe, are there. It is strategic for us to integrate them,” continues Caitlin Keam. Especially since other geographic areas, starting with the United States, are working on bonds of the same type. “That’s why we take a standardized approach to ensure our clients’ ESG initiatives are globally consistent.”

Cloud ESG Lobby centralizes all ESG KPIs. “This means that the sustainability information and data that clients work on is no longer stuck in spreadsheets or silos.”

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IFS Cloud Emissions Tracker and ESG Lobby are available for beta testing on request

IFS Cloud also has features to plan and manage circular economy practices (remanufacturing, reverse supply chain, etc.). For example, ERP makes it possible to calculate the costs of returning products, then of their disassembly and remanufacturing.

For Isaac Gould, research director at Nucleus Research, the update is important for clients who must meet new regulatory standards.

From her point of view, which corroborates that of Caitlin Keam, it makes sense for this ESG reporting to be done in the ERP, since that is where invoices, purchase orders and supplier data are already located, “rather than having to outsource it and build integrations, which would be very expensive and time-consuming,” he points out.

However, some ESG data does not come from ERP – for example, supply chain and logistics data is often managed by other specialist applications.

“Once you have ESG Lobby, you won’t be out of trouble,” he sums up. “You will likely need to pull data from other sources tobuild a complete picture of your organization’s ESG.”

The addition of functionalities for circular operations is also welcome from an ESG and sustainability perspective, believes Isaac Gould. Companies increasingly want to maximize their assets and materials by giving a second life (and a second sale) to their products after a return.

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(Featured image by anncapictures via Pixabay)

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