Data & Analyses: What Role Do They Play in Sustainability

Why are data and analyses so important when assessing sustainability?

Digital technologies and data are the key to sustainable business practices. On the one hand, they provide a meaningful basis for making initiatives and investments to reach sustainability goals. On the other hand, they help to enable a clear understanding of the results and successes needed to achieve a sustainable corporate future.

More than just data: the path to greater sustainability in companies

Data alone is not enough. Rather, it is a process that begins with the collection of sustainability-related data along the value chain and leads to the implementation of effective measures through thoughtful analysis.

The following stages are important:

• Creation of a database from internal and external sources.
• Data tracking of the company's current performance with regard to sustainability goals.
• Prediction based on these data - forecast of the impacts of the business model and possible investments (predictive analytics).
• Corporate management - integration of actual data and forecasts for the company's KPIs and decision making processes.
• Recommendations - based on the previous steps and making use of precriptive and optimizing algorithms.
• Implementation of measures designed to increase the company's overall effeciency in terms of sustainability.

Long-term sustainability - this only works in companies through data analysis

To ensure successful sustainability management in a company, data collection and analysis play a crucial role.

More specifically, this means:

• Companies receive specific data on their current and past sustainability performance, e.g. on the carbon footprint of products.
• The relationships between profitability and sustainable business practices becomes tangible and manageable.
• Sustainability is a key concern for many stakeholders - employees, investors, and customers alike. In this respect, being able to present a comprehensible sustainability strategy offers a decisive competetive advantage.
• Compliance with legal requirements for sustainability: Sustainability analytics allow companies to ensure that they meet legal requirements and produce standard-compliant sustainability reports.
• A basis for sustainable investments: Data and analyses enable transparent communication and recording of sustainability performance, which in turn is important for obtaining certification as a sustainable company.
• Data speak for themselves - no greenwashing: Sustainability analytics make sustainability performance measurable and thus credible.

Making businesses more sustainable with a master's degree from RWTH Business School

With our Master of Science in Sustainability Management, we will transform you into a highly sought-after sustainability manager. You will acquire specialized technical knowledge, all the necessary physical principles related to sustainability, combined with management know-how, that will enable you to guide companies towards a more sustainable future.

Become a sustainability expert and learn, among other things:

• how to professionally manage sustainability projects
• in-depth expertise in areas such as climate change, sustainable technologies, innovation, analytics, and social sciences
• the relationship between profitability, effectiveness, and sustainability

In the specialization module ‘Analytics Lab’, you will learn how to use descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics for sustainability management. In this way, you will ensure that sustainability in the company is not just a buzzword, but that a real change towards long-term sustainable development is taking place, based on data and analyses.

Find out more about the M.Sc. Sustainability Management: Technology, Analytics & Transformation