Optimizing sustainability reporting and review workflows in Workiva​

The challenge 

A global mining organization with more than $1.5 billion in annual revenue faced growing complexity in its sustainability reporting process. As reporting requirements expanded and stakeholder scrutiny increased, the company’s existing processes struggled to keep pace.

Sustainability data and reporting content were fragmented across Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and email chains.

This decentralized approach:

• Limited scalability and reduced confidence in reported results
• Increased the risk of version control issues and data inconsistencies
• Required significant manual reconciliation between the sustainability databook and the final report
• Lacked structured workflows, centralized governance, and role-based access controls
• Relied heavily on manual review and approval cycles, extending timelines and elevating reporting risk

As expectations for accuracy, transparency, and timeliness grew, the organization needed a more controlled, integrated, and efficient reporting environment.

Clearsulting approach

Clearsulting partnered with the client to modernize and streamline their sustainability reporting within Workiva, focusing on governance, automation, and workflow optimization.

Our approach included:

• Establishing a validated document structure with direct spreadsheet linking between report sections and underlying source data tables, eliminating manual rekeying and reconciliation.
• Migrating the sustainability report and databook into a controlled, native Workiva environment to centralize content and data.
• Provisioning and permissioning 40+ users with granular, section-level access controls to ensure appropriate oversight and accountability.
• Leveraging Workiva’s Advanced Permission Matrix and user grouping to enforce role-based governance across contributors, reviewers, and leadership.
• Configuring structured workflows to manage document updates, spreadsheet data collection, and review cycles with built-in transparency and traceability.

This structured implementation transformed reporting from a manual, fragmented process into a controlled and scalable system aligned with leading practices.

The solution

By centralizing reporting in Workiva and embedding governance directly into the process, the organization achieved measurable performance improvements and reduced reporting risk.

Key outcomes included:

• 40% productivity improvement for the core Sustainability team
• Significant reduction in manual reconciliation risk between narrative disclosures and underlying sustainability data
• A single, centralized review point for Executive Leadership, supported by automated notifications and workflow-driven feedback
• 50% reduction in data collection time across qualitative and quantitative metrics, with further efficiencies expected as additional datasets are onboarded

The result is a scalable, audit-ready sustainability reporting process that enhances data integrity, improves collaboration, and positions the organization to confidently meet evolving regulatory and stakeholder expectations.