Oracle sustainability study shows problems with data reporting
1 min read
Poor data quality is hampering reporting and company-wide policies, but the future is real-time decisions and empowered employees.
That's the view of database and applications giant Oracle which today launched its 'Sustainable Performance Management' study from trends consultancy, The Future Laboratory.
Oracle's study follows its 2008 report 'The Shape of Tomorrow's Supply Chain' and provides an update on attitudes among British business, as well as concentrating on one of the key issues – measuring and reporting.
Key findings include: sustainability remains a priority for 92% of respondents; and 68% agree it's good for business and increasingly link sustainability and cost effectiveness and improving efficiency.
Beyond those, last year's survey highlighted cherry picking as a cause for concern, and that trend continues, with 71% of respondents concentrating efforts on lowering waste and 65% cutting energy usage.
As for the perceived barriers to improving sustainability, Oracle's study shows they are complex – including the fact that company-wide initiatives struggle to gather and interpret data (53% of respondents cite collecting information from internal sources as a major barrier to sustainability reporting).
Yet despite the challenges, Oracle finds that some organisations are already setting tougher sustainability goals. More than one third (37%) say they want to reduce carbon to zero in the future, and 47% intend to report on a daily, hourly or continuous basis.
