ESG and Sustainability Planning
ESG targets are achieved through business decisions, not sustainability reports.
Pigment brings sustainability planning into the same environment as financial and operational planning. We build models that link emissions drivers to financial drivers, so the ESG plan is fully integrated with your financial and operational plans, and you understand the impact of changes on your ESG position.
Reporting and planning answer different questions
ESG is the integration of environmental, social and governance considerations into business strategy. ESG is evolving from a reporting requirement to a strategic framework for managing risk, creating value and supporting long-term business success.
Reporting tells you what has already happened. Planning tells you what is likely to happen, and lets you test a decision before you make it.
ESG reporting
What has happened
ESG planning
What will happen
What were our emissions?
What will our emissions be?
Are we compliant?
Will we achieve our targets?
Historical performance
Future scenarios
Reports results
Tests decisions
Measures progress
Guides action
Why ESG planning, and why now
Reporting standards now ask companies to show scenario analysis and a transition plan, not only past performance. The disclosure bar is rising faster than confidence in planning.
In the Net Zero Stocktake 2025, 63% of the listed companies tracked had a net zero target, and 7% of those targets met the minimum integrity criteria.
UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS). From accounting periods starting 1 January 2027, listed companies apply UK SRS on a comply-or-explain basis, including scenario analysis. They must say whether they have a transition plan, or explain why not. First reports are due in 2028.
Global ISSB standards. UK SRS is based on the IFRS S1 and S2 standards issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). The UK versions were published in February 2026.
EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Applies to companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than €450m net turnover (Directive (EU) 2026/470). Companies not already reporting start with financial year 2027.
Double materiality. Under CSRD, companies report how sustainability issues affect the business and how the business affects people and the environment. The revised European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) keep it.
What changes ESG outcomes?
ESG targets are not achieved by measuring performance. They are achieved by modelling the underlying business drivers.
Business growth
Revenue changes
New markets
Acquisitions and divestments
Operational decisions
Production volumes
Energy sourcing
Logistics networks
Investment choices
Decarbonisation initiatives
Capital allocation
Technology adoption
Supply chain actions
Supplier engagement
Procurement strategy
Scope 3 reductions
External environment
Policy and carbon pricing
Decarbonisation
Physical climate risk
Our ESG Solutions
Our Pigment solutions are designed to help you transition from reporting past performance to modelling the future impact of plans on your ESG goals and presenting a strategic vision to your stakeholders.
ESG Targets & Performance
Set targets across environmental, social and governance measures, give each one an owner, and forecast it alongside the financial plan. Actuals are loaded each period, so each forecast is compared with its target through the year.
Status shows which targets are on track, at risk or off track, by pillar and by measure, while there is still time to act.
Social measures can be planned as well as reported: for example the cost and timing of closing a gender pay gap, which UK employers with 250 or more staff are expected to set out in an action plan from spring 2027, and supplier due-diligence measures held on the same supplier list as Scope 3. For governance, each figure has an owner, a sign-off and a version history.
Environmental, social and governance. Emissions, energy, water and waste alongside pay, diversity, safety, board and supplier measures.
Forecast against target. Each measure is forecast for the year, not only reported at year end.
Owned measures. Each target has a named owner who submits the forecast.
ESG targets and performance · illustrative model, synthetic data
Carbon Baseline & Business-as-Usual Forecast
We build the carbon baseline in Pigment by scope and category, with the calculation method and data quality recorded against each source.
Business-as-usual emissions are then forecast from that baseline, using the economy-wide reduction rate for each category and the commitments your suppliers have already made. The forecast shows where emissions are heading with no new action.
Scopes 1, 2 and 3. Each category is held with its own method and data-quality score.
Business as usual. Emissions are forecast by year to 2060, by category and scope.
Editable assumptions. Change a reduction rate and the forecast updates.
Baseline footprint and business-as-usual assumptions · illustrative model, synthetic data
Net Zero Targets & Decarbonisation Planning
Choose the target: Net Zero by 2040, 2045 or 2050, or a custom reduction by a set year. Set against business as usual, the gap shows how much has to be closed, in which year and in which categories.
Each initiative carries its cost, its expected reduction once fully running, an owner, a start year and a ramp-up period. Select initiatives and set start dates, and the emissions pathway, the investment required and the Net Zero year update together. A marginal abatement cost curve ranks initiatives by cost per tonne.
Target and gap. Compare 2040, 2045, 2050 and custom targets, with the gap by year and by category.
Initiative library. Cost, reduction, confidence and timing for each initiative.
Overlaps. Where two initiatives reduce the same emissions, the combined saving is reduced.
Build the transition strategy · illustrative model, synthetic data
Supplier Engagement & Scope 3
Companies reporting to CDP said their supply chain emissions were on average 26 times their operational emissions (CDP, 2024). Those emissions sit with your suppliers, so the business can influence them but not control them. The model ranks suppliers by emissions, spend and the maturity of their own reduction programmes, and shows how much of the gap engaging the largest suppliers would close.
Supplier programme status feeds back into the business-as-usual forecast, so procurement decisions show in the emissions plan.
Supplier priority. Reduction potential and influence, supplier by supplier.
Engagement capacity. How much of the potential the first suppliers engaged would deliver.
Programme status. Updated by procurement and reflected in the forecast.
Supplier priority ranking · illustrative model, synthetic data
Transition Plans, Scenarios & Confidence
Compare strategies side by side: the Net Zero year, the gap remaining, the investment and the emissions abated. Delivery risk is simulated for each initiative, which gives the likelihood that a strategy meets the target.
The result is a quantified transition plan, initiative by initiative, that can be re-run when business assumptions change.
Strategy comparison. Current strategy, quick wins, supplier-led and maximum ambition.
Target confidence. Probability of meeting the target, from delivery-risk simulation.
Disclosure support. Scenario analysis and quantified initiatives, organised around the Transition Plan Taskforce elements: foundations, implementation, engagement, metrics and targets, and governance.
Pigment supports the planning and scenario analysis behind a transition plan. External assurance and statutory filing stay with your reporting process and auditors.
Outcome: emissions pathways and target confidence · illustrative model, synthetic data
Building a living planning capability
Towards evidence-based and adaptable ESG planning with Pigment.
Stage 1
Foundation
ESG targets
Carbon baseline
Master data
Governance
Stage 2
Planning
Driver models
Forecasting
Target tracking
KPI management
Stage 3
Decision making
Scenario planning
Intervention optimisation
Investment decisions
Continuous reforecasting
Organisations do not achieve their ESG targets through reporting. They achieve them through integrated planning, intervention management and continuous decision-making.
Connected to the business plan
The ESG plan reads from the same drivers as the rest of the plan, and closes like it: estimates are replaced by actuals each period, versions are kept, and the base year is recalculated after acquisitions and divestments.
Financial Planning and Reporting
Initiative cost and investment sit in the capital plan and the forecast.
Supply Chain Planning
Production volumes, energy sourcing and logistics drive Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
Workforce Planning
Equal pay and gender pay gap planning covers pay equity, one of the social measures.
Sustainability reporting. Pigment also supports CSRD reporting against the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, and EU Taxonomy KPIs, from the same data as the plan. CSRD reporting in Pigment
ESG planning by industry
To find out more about our industry expertise use the links below
CPG & retail
Most of the footprint sits with suppliers, so supplier engagement, sourcing and packaging are planned against the Scope 3 target.
Manufacturing
Energy, fuel switching and process changes are planned with their capital cost, alongside production volumes.
Banking & finance
Financed emissions are measured with the PCAF method and planned against portfolio targets.
Insurance
Insurance-associated emissions and climate scenario results feed strategy, risk and capital planning.
Technology & telecoms
Data centre and network energy demand, renewable contracts and Scope 2 are planned alongside capacity growth.
Tell us the planning problem
Bring us your baseline, your target and your initiative list, and we will show you what they look like as one model in Pigment.
Talk to a Pigment expert