Track your social and governance data

Microsoft Sustainability Manager lets you track and report social and governance data alongside existing environmental metrics. This functionality helps organizations get a comprehensive view of their sustainability efforts by integrating key quantitative social and governance metrics across several ESRS areas into the existing external reporting framework.

This article explains several schema and functional changes that help you quickly start ingesting and tracking your organization’s social and governance data in Microsoft Sustainability Manager.

Important

If you use the External ESG Reporting solution, the social and governance data model is under the Concepts tab. If you use Microsoft Sustainability Manager, the data model is under Data > Social data (preview) and Data > Governance data (preview).

Watch a demo of the Social and governance functionality:

Data Schema

This section discusses several data schema changes related to the social and governance data model. For more information about the external reporting data schema, see External reporting in Sustainability Manager.

Concept group

A concept group is a collection of concepts that belong to the same reporting topic. The social and governance data model includes 16 concept groups, such as Characteristics of employees and Governance body composition.

Group type

A group type allows you to categorize a concept group as one of the following types:

• Environment
• Social
• Governance

When you select Social or Governance as the group type, that concept group appears under the respective Social or Governance data tab. Additionally, it lets you view the underlying concepts and their facts in the Social and governance PBI report under Analytics.

Concept

A concept represents a reporting metric for which data needs to be collected and reported on, such as Number of employees by gender.

Dimension

A dimension represents either an attribute of the metric or the granularity at which the data is collected. For the social and governance data model, these dimensions are defined as either Required or Optional.

Concept	Dimension	Dimension Type
Number of employees by gender	Gender	Required
	Country/region	Optional

In the shown example, Gender is considered the required dimension because it’s an attribute of the metric itself. Country/region is then considered an optional dimension as that is the level at which we collect the metric data before aggregating it back up to the level necessary for reporting.

Note

Each concept can have a maximum of two Required dimensions and four Optional dimensions.

Source

Source is a system-defined field that helps you differentiate between the following concept types:

• Default: Concepts default to the system that can't be modified. These concepts can still be extended.
• Custom: Concepts created by a user on that environment.
• Demo: Concepts intended for demo purposes only.
• Required for Copilot: Concepts required for finding facts with Copilot. For more information, see Find facts with Copilot in Microsoft Sustainability Manager (preview).

Unit group

Unit group is an optional field that helps you restrict the underlying facts to a specific unit group. For the social and governance concepts, we recommend defining a unit group at the concept level in order to avoid ingestion and PBI report errors on the underlying facts.

Facts

Facts contain qualitative or quantitative data that corresponds to a particular concept. For example, if the concept is Number of employees by gender, the associated facts could be:

• Number of employees – Male
• Number of employees – Female
• Number of employees – Other
• Number of employees – Not reported

Each concept can have multiple associated facts. However, each fact is associated with only one concept.

Extend the data model

While the core concepts, as defined by their Default concept type, can't be modified, there are several ways to customize or extend the data model to support your organization’s unique needs. The following section covers a few examples to help you get started.

Add additional dimensions to a default concept

Default concepts can be extended to support additional required or optional dimensions based on your organization’s needs.

1. Select the concept to add additional dimensions.

2. Select New dimension reference.

3. Name your dimension reference and select the dimension you want to link to.

4. Select Save & Close.

   

Add a new concept to an existing concept group

In addition to default concepts, you can add new or existing concepts to any concept group.

1. Select the concept group you’d like to add concept(s) to.

2. To create a new concept, select New concept and complete these fields:

   • Name (required)
   • Display name (optional)
   • Concept data type

3. To link an existing concept:

   • Select Add Existing Concept.
   • Choose the desired concept from the list.

4. Select Save & Close.

Add a new concept group

Create additional concept groups beyond the default ones to organize environmental, social, or governance data:

1. Go to the Concept groups tab in one of these locations:

   • Concepts
   • Social data (preview)
   • Governance data (preview)

2. Select New concept group.

3. Configure the new group:

   • Enter a name for the concept group.

   • Choose a Group Type: Environmental, Social, or Governance.

     Note

Environmental concept groups are visible only in Concept groups under External reporting > Concepts.

1. Select Save & Close. After creating the group, you can begin adding concepts to organize your sustainability data.

   

Create and collect multiple facts for a concept

After customizing your concepts, use the Create multiple facts flow to generate facts in an empty draft state for easy template export and import.

1. Navigate to a concept’s Associated facts tab and select Create multiple facts.

2. Confirm the required and optional dimensions, and select a reporting period for the facts.

3. Select Create facts.

   Note

   If you're using External ESG Reporting or Microsoft Sustainability Manager Essentials, this automation retrieves a maximum of 1,000 members per dimension. If a concept has a dimension with more than this amount, the automation fails.

   

Create data requests for social and governance facts

You can create data requests to collect your social and governance data points in the form of facts.

For more information about facts, refer to Create facts - Microsoft for Sustainability | Microsoft Learn.

Follow these steps to create data requests for social and governance facts:

1. Go to Data in the left navigation, then choose either Social data or Governance data.

2. Select Concepts and choose any concept. Select the concept’s name to open it. You can also access concepts from the external reporting module.

3. To create data requests, ensure there are associated facts for your concept. Select Associate facts tab to review the facts. If not present, you can create facts by selecting the Create multiple facts button.

4. Select the facts and then select Create data requests.

   

   

5. Specify the values for data owner, due date, and description. If you select multiple facts, the same values will apply to all requests. Defaults are used if no values are entered (for example, the request creator becomes the data owner). You can always edit requests later to ensure you have the right fields.

6. Select Create data request to generate them.

7. Go to Data Collection > Requests to view your requests. Confirm the correct data owners, reporting period, and any additional details before sending.

8. Each request includes a placeholder for the data owner to provide their response. Learn more about adding data owners or sending email notifications to them about the request in Data collection in Microsoft Sustainability Manager (preview) - Microsoft for Sustainability | Microsoft Learn.

Use Excel template to collect social and governance data

After generating facts, collect and import data in Microsoft Sustainability Manager using an Excel template. Perform the following steps to collect your data:

Export facts template

1. Go to the Associated facts page for the concept.

2. Select the vertical ellipsis (⋮) menu in the table.

3. Choose Export facts to download an Excel template.

   Note

   The template contains all facts for the concept in an empty draft state.

Import completed data

1. Fill in the values in the Excel template.

2. Navigate to Data > Imports.

3. Select New > Power Query Connectors.

4. Select Reporting metrics from the list of sources, then add Facts and select Next.

5. From here, upload the Excel sheet with the completed fact data and complete the ingestion process as usual.

   Note

   For a complete guide on importing data using Power Query, see Import data with Power Query

The imported facts are available for reporting and analysis in Microsoft Sustainability Manager.

Analyze your social and governance data

Important

The social and governance Power BI dashboard is only available with Essentials and Premium licenses.

After collecting facts for your social and governance metrics, analyze your data using the embedded Power BI dashboard:

1. Navigate to Analytics > Social and governance (preview)

2. Select the concept you want to analyze

3. Filter your data using the dropdown menus for:

   • Specific dimensions
   • Time periods
   • Other relevant parameters

   

The dashboard displays visualizations and insights based on your collected metrics.

Supported metrics

For a complete list of supported metrics, download Microsoft Sustainability Manager - Social and Governance Metrics.xlsx.

Related information

• Analytics