Make sustainability data drive decisions: how to embed it in ERP, CRM, and procurement

TL;DR

Most sustainability data never reaches ERP (procurement), CRM (sales), or finance/risk in time to change outcomes. Two timing gaps cause the stall: annual reporting vs. daily decisions, and market needs that evolve faster than formal rules. Close the gaps by standardizing key fields, linking evidence & audit trail to those fields, and placing decision-ready data directly in business systems—supported by shared infrastructure (e.g., LMEpassport) and clear metrics (e.g., product carbon footprints).

Why most sustainability data doesn’t change decisions

Companies collect vast amounts of sustainability data: emissions, supplier practices, resource use, policies, detailed reports. Yet most of it never shapes business decision-making. The core issue isn’t volume; it’s the failure to operationalize sustainability data where decisions happen.

In our recent webinar with Hugo Brodie (London Metal Exchange) and Felix Schmitz (Kloeckner Metals Germany), leaders across metals and mining described the same pattern. The data exists, but it sits outside the tools that run the business. Procurement chooses suppliers in ERP, sales responds to customers in CRM, and finance models risk elsewhere, so sustainability input arrives late, requires manual reformatting, and rarely changes the outcome.

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“Sustainability can't sit on the side as an advisory function. It needs to be embedded in how procurement, sales, and operations actually work.”
— Felix Schmitz, CEO, Kloeckner Metals Germany

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Where data lives vs. where decisions happen

• Collection stack: spreadsheets and reporting/sustainability platforms owned by the sustainability team.
• Decision stack: ERP (supplier selection, onboarding, contracts), CRM (customer questionnaires, RFPs), finance/risk (models, approvals).
• Impact: when these stacks aren’t connected, sustainability input hits inboxes after choices are made.

Two timing gaps:

(1) Annual reporting vs. daily choices

Reporting runs on monthly or annual cycles (compile → verify → publish) while business decisions are continuous. Procurement evaluates suppliers weekly, sales replies to customer requests daily, and finance reassesses risk as conditions change. By the time data is packaged for reports, it can be months old and no longer relevant to the decision at hand.

(2) Markets move faster than rulebooks

Demand for decision-ready sustainability signals often outpaces formal rulemaking. Instead of waiting for a universal method across commodities, start with market-led signals (e.g., voluntary sustainability premiums) and let stricter thresholds follow as consensus and liquidity form. Shared platforms like LMEpassport help by standardizing site/product data so information moves at transaction speed, not consultation speed.

"Changing the rulebook for each metal is a very long process. This is a constantly evolving market. Different indicators become more important or measurable. We want to be market-led, rather than declare a mandatory rule for everyone. If there is massive liquidity and more agreement in the future, we start the more arduous job and embedding it in our rules.” — Hugo Brodie, LME

How to fix it (operational, not just technical)

Technology helps, but the bottleneck is organizational. Teams need a shared field dictionary (definition, owner, allowed values, refresh cadence) and an evidence vault that links proof - policies, procedures, training logs, KPI series, attestations - to the exact fields used in ERP/CRM/finance. With clear ownership and refresh rules (policies ≤24 months; trainings ≤12; KPIs current quarter), data stays trustworthy and decision-ready.

Do this next:

1. Put decision fields into business systems

• ERP (procurement): supplier risk tiers, CAP status & owners, contract clauses linked to evidence.
• CRM (sales): reusable, source-cited answer library for questionnaires and RFPs.
• Finance/risk: regulatory flags (e.g., CBAM exposure) and accepted evidence bundles for reviews.

2. Agree a shared field dictionary

Define the 20–25 fields that move decisions (e.g., risk tier, CAP, training coverage, current-quarter KPIs). For each field: definition, owner, allowed values, refresh cadence, evidence link.

3. Attach evidence & audit trail at the field level

Keep policies, procedures, training logs, KPI series, incident logs, attestations versioned and linked to the exact fields used in ERP/CRM/finance, with lineage and approvals. Make exportable audit bundles on demand.

4. Automate the messy handoffs

Use OCR → structured tables for scanned questionnaires, translations that preserve citations and numbers, and source-cited answers (“chat with your data”) for internal Q&A. Start with light connectors/scheduled imports before heavy rebuilds.

What “good” looks like

The same sustainability fields appear in ERP, CRM, and finance; every field links to evidence with lineage and approvals; data refreshes before it goes stale; sales reuses answers instead of reinventing them; and procurement tracks CAPs inside ERP, not in spreadsheets. Supply-chain traceability requests can be handled without bespoke compilation thanks to standardized infrastructure (e.g., LMEpassport).

Why this matters now

Customers are shifting from optional questionnaires to mandatory supplier criteria, and regulations (e.g., CBAM in the EU) add financial consequences when data isn’t decision-ready. Manual compilation won’t scale across hundreds of suppliers and weekly tenders. The winners will be those who turn sustainability data into fast, comparable, auditable inputs for everyday decisions.

Learn more about AI sustainability solution for informed business desicsions

beSirius integrates sustainability data with a Sustainability Twin™ data model, a source-linked evidence vault, and source-cited answers your teams can reuse at speed. Interested in learning more?

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This post builds on Executive Sustainability Dialogues session “Making sustainability commercial: the metals industry perspective.”

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👉 Learn more about AI, money and the end of sustainability - Sustainability Outlook 2025