Cosmo Energy Holdings gains ESG insights with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability

Putting sustainability into focus

In recent years, regulatory bodies around the world have expanded their requirements around environmental and ESG reporting. In Japan, home to Cosmo Energy Holdings, ESG and other nonfinancial reports are now required to be detailed according to standards that align with financial reporting. In this context, Cosmo Energy Holdings established the Sustainability Initiative Department. In addition to complying with regulations and responding to disclosure requests, the department is tasked with increasing transparency around the company’s sustainability efforts.

By promoting Cosmo Energy Holdings’ sustainability initiatives through various key performance indicators (KPIs), the department also hopes to increase the company’s value for shareholders. “We used to be occupied with collecting and disclosing our ESG data,” says Yukiko Tanaka, Group Manager, ESG Initiative Group in the Sustainability Initiative Department, at Cosmo Energy Holdings. “In order to adapt to the growing disclosure requirements, we needed to adopt a more systemized, automated, and flexible approach.” In particular, the flexibility of any solution the company adopted was important, given that the Japanese government-issued indicators and other data used to calculate corporate CO2 emissions have the potential to change every year.

As Cosmo Energy Holdings began looking for a solution that met its modernization needs, the company set out three goals. With each of its 40 subsidiary companies independently reporting on 200-300 unique data streams, the first priority was streamlining and unifying ESG data collection. Second, the company needed a way to more efficiently disclose and make use of its ESG data. With these two things accomplished, it would next be able to redirect its focus toward improving the effectiveness of its ESG-related KPI monitoring. Cosmo Energy Holdings has relied on Microsoft to provide and secure its infrastructure for years, and that trust made adopting Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability and Microsoft Power Platform an easy first choice for the company.

From silos to at-a-glance ESG reports

To efficiently address its first goal of orchestrating complex reporting from its subsidiary companies, Cosmo Energy Holdings enlisted the aid of EY, a member of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. In addition to helping implement Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, EY has worked diligently to investigate the business flow and standardize reporting at each subsidiary. Refining how the solution worked during this phase was an iterative process that the low-code capabilities of Power Platform greatly accelerated.

Using Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability and Microsoft Power Platform, Cosmo Energy Holdings is working to achieve its second goal of better tracking, analyzing, and improving its sustainability efforts across various ESG indicators. Microsoft Sustainability Manager, part of Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, helps record and store the ESG reporting data on business activities, calculates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and generates reports regarding ESG-related indicators.

“Sustainability Manager is a great feature of Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability,” says Tanaka. “Thanks to the solution’s high level of customizability, security, and connectivity with our Microsoft estate, we expect its benefits to grow for years to come.”

Microsoft Power Platform solutions Power Apps and Power Automate each help expand and customize the solution’s functionalities. Power Apps provides user interface and data model customization, allows for more complex interactions between data sources, and provides custom user-interface designs for Microsoft Sustainability Manager. Power Automate expands the solution’s automation capabilities, helping to accurately categorize imported data, calculate GHG emissions, and aggregate results to generate ESG reports.

With the initial deployment phase nearly complete and ongoing system enhancements underway, the companies continue to work closely together as Cosmo Energy Holdings shifts focus toward its third goal: the long-term improvement of ESG-related KPI monitoring and using ESG data during sustainability management activities.

Reinvesting in a greener tomorrow

The solution is already paying impressive dividends. This year, Cosmo Energy Holdings was able to complete its ESG data aggregation process two weeks faster than it could have last year. “Our ESG reporting is now done much more efficiently, with a greater degree of transparency,” says Tanaka. “As a result, we believe that we have gained more trust and understanding from our customers and investors.”

Because the company can now more accurately and efficiently report on carbon dioxide and other GHG emissions, much of the time that was once spent gathering emissions data could soon be devoted to roles more focused on GHG reduction measures. “As we reduce the effort required for data management, for instance, we will be able to devote more time to planning for decarbonization, understanding risks such as human rights, and supporting environmental initiatives,” explains Tanaka. “In the near future, we hope to also harness the power of Microsoft AI solutions so that we might better analyze our data and further improve our results against multiple ESG KPIs.”

Find out more about Cosmo Energy Holdings on LinkedIn.