Case study: Pharmaceuticals | GovEVA SmartReporter
How a European Pharma Manufacturer Prepared Its First ESRS Report on a Fully Digital Audit Trail
A first report under the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) is demanding on its own. This European contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), which develops and manufactures drug ingredients and finished medicines for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, prepared its first report under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) using data from five locations across several countries.
It chose GovEVA SmartReporter, a reporting platform built on one principle: collect once, report anywhere. The company captured sustainability data across all five sites, digitized its double materiality assessment and greenhouse gas inventory, and prepared its first ESRS report on GovEVA, with every figure approved, logged and traceable from entry to report.
Basecamp: The Challenge
A first ESRS report, built from five sites
The company was preparing to report under the European Sustainability Reporting Standards for the first time, as part of its reporting under the CSRD. Sustainability data was maintained in spreadsheets at five locations in several countries, and the company saw an opportunity to bring it together on one platform ahead of its first report.
How do we prepare a first ESRS report, consistently, across five sites?
The question that shaped the engagement from the start.
A first ESRS report
Reporting under the ESRS for the first time meant setting up a double materiality assessment and a structured set of datapoints.
Sites in several countries
Data had to be collected from five locations and brought together consistently.
From spreadsheets to a platform
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics were tracked in spreadsheets, and the company wanted to digitize that tracking on a dedicated platform.
Ready for review
The company wanted every figure to carry a clear record of who entered it and who approved it.
Ascent: The Solution
Collect once, report anywhere: one platform for a first ESRS report
GovEVA configured SmartReporter around the ESRS and the way the company needed to report, so each datapoint was collected once at source and used wherever the report needed it. The work ran in three steps: configure what to report, capture data at every location, and consolidate it into one report-ready data set.
Configure
Built around the ESRS.
A customized ESRS reporting format
GovEVA set up a reporting format in SmartReporter tailored to the ESRS datapoints the company needed to report.
A digital double materiality assessment
The assessment that decides what an ESRS report must cover was run on the platform, in line with the standards.
Tested and trained
The client's team ran user acceptance testing (UAT), checking the platform against their needs before go-live, and stakeholders were trained on how to work in it.
Capture
Five locations, one way of working.
Digital onboarding at every site
All five locations were onboarded with their own data workflows.
Custom calculators
Calculator workflows digitized the company's GHG inventory and other ESG metrics in line with the ESRS.
Maker-checker approval and audit logs
One person enters each figure and another approves it, and the platform records every entry, approval and change.
Consolidate
Collect once, report anywhere.
One consolidated data set
Data entered once at each site rolled up into a single data set for the ESRS report, with no second round of collection.
Ready to report anywhere
Because SmartReporter is built to collect once and report anywhere, the same data set can serve other frameworks and stakeholder requests as they arise.
Traceable to the report
Every figure in the ESRS report can be traced back to the location that entered it and the person who approved it.
Dedicated support. GovEVA provided dedicated project management and technical support throughout the engagement.
Summit: The Outcomes
A first ESRS report, built on a fully digital audit trail
- The company prepared its first ESRS report on GovEVA SmartReporter, with data captured across all five locations.
- Its CSRD reporting drew on one consolidated data set, built from figures collected once at each of the five sites.
- ESG data management is consistent across sites: all five locations work in the same workflows on the same platform.
- The double materiality assessment was digitized on the platform, in line with the ESRS.
- A digital audit trail, built from maker-checker approval and audit logs, sits behind every figure.
- GHG inventory and ESG metric calculations run through custom workflows aligned with the ESRS.
Why a digital audit trail matters for a first ESRS report
Collect once, report anywhere: one traceable data set, from the first report onward.
The European Sustainability Reporting Standards are the rules companies follow when they report under the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Reporting starts from a double materiality assessment, and the data behind it needs to stand up to external review. Spreadsheets can hold the figures, but across several sites, showing who entered and approved each one takes more effort.
A first ESRS report also sets the pattern for every one that follows. Collecting each figure once, in a system that records every entry and approval, gives a multi-site pharmaceutical manufacturer a single, traceable source it can build on year after year. That is the principle behind GovEVA SmartReporter: collect once, report anywhere.
Frequently asked questions
What is ESRS?
ESRS stands for European Sustainability Reporting Standards. They set out what companies must disclose on environmental, social and governance matters under the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
What is a double materiality assessment?
It is an assessment of sustainability topics from two directions: how the company affects people and the environment, and how sustainability matters affect the company's finances. Reporting under the ESRS starts from this assessment.
What does collect once, report anywhere mean?
It means each figure is entered once, at the source, and then used wherever it is needed, across ESRS disclosures and other frameworks, instead of being gathered again for each report. In this engagement, GovEVA SmartReporter brought data from five locations into one data set for the company's first ESRS report.
Preparing your first ESRS report?
Talk to GovEVA about SmartReporter: collect once, report anywhere, from your first CSRD report onward.
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