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See what's new in IBM® Envizi ESG Suite.

December 2024

Double materiality tags in Sustainability Reporting Manager: Double Materiality tags are available. For more information, see Adding materiality and gap tags.
New auditor access role in Sustainability Reporting Manager: The Auditor role is now available as an access role in the base platform. Auditors with the User work role in SRM can view all disclosures and responses without being assigned and have edit capabilities that are restricted to leaving comments only. Auditors cannot be assigned to any disclosure roles.
View-only user access update in Sustainability Reporting Manager: View-Only users can no longer be assigned to any disclosure roles.
Handling deleted users in Sustainability Reporting Manager: Sustainability Reporting Manager now retains all historical activity of deleted Envizi ESG Suite logins, including existing assignments and created content such as frameworks, questions, disclosures, and responses. Deleted users are tagged as deleted for easier identification, enabling Disclosure Owners and System Administrators to change any orphaned assignments.
Expanded Copy Response feature: This feature now allows form questions, such as ESRS, to use content from similar questions. Also, Copy from Last Year and Previous Responses are updated to return only responses that were completed during the current or earlier reporting period. The search button continues to return responses regardless of status.
Updated Reporting Period settings: Disclosure reporting periods are now configured by using month-end and reporting period length. This change is to prevent any mid-month settings and to align with reporting preference settings in the base platform.
On demand refresh of PowerReports: You can refresh PowerReport datasets on demand through the PowerReports page in IBM Envizi ESG Suite.; For more information, see Refreshing datasets on-demand.
Advanced user access control for Envizi ESG Suite Business Partners: Envizi ESG Suite Business Partners can restrict client organization access for internal users through the Login Organizations page. For more information, see Business Partner only: Restricting organization access.
Norma de Caracter General N°461 (NCG N°461) framework is now available in Sustainability Reporting Manager: The NCG N°461 is a regulation that is issued by the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero in Chile and applies to companies, publicly traded companies, and other entities. For more information, see NCG N°461 summary and attribution.

November 2024

A Flat File Format template is provided for adding data in bulk for various account style fields across multiple account styles: This template is primarily for system-to-system account data transfer. Each record is presented across multiple rows in the file. You can manually upload the file by clicking Manage > Upload Files. Alternatively, if you have set up data flow automation, you can use the flat file format for file uploads.; For more information, see Using the flat file template to upload data.
IEA 2024 factors are available for 2025 emissions reporting attributed to electricity data: For more information, see IEA Factors.
ENERGY STAR module enhancement enables configuration of meters used in ESPM metrics calculations: You can now move meters to either the Meters - Used to Compute Metrics list or the Additional Meters - Not Used in Metrics list in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager during an API data sync. To move meters to either list, configure a combination of account and meter tags, and location and organization configuration settings in Envizi ESG Suite. For more information, see Configuring meters used in ESPM metrics calculations.
GRESB module enhancement: Performance improvements to the GRESB group level grid pages provide a smoother experience during the bulk capture of GRESB responses. If you use a copy and paste operation to bulk upload data in tabular format directly into Envizi ESG Suite, you must confirm the bulk upload in a confirmation dialog before it is completed.

October 2024

Two new API reports are available for the Surveys and Assessments module with API Add-on.

The following reports are available:

_Envizi-SurveyResponsesQuestionsandAnswers
_Envizi-SurveyResponsesQuestionsAnswersandScoringParameters

For more information about API access, see API access.

Updates to the Record & Cost Audit API report.

The Record & Cost Audit API report, _Envizi-RecordsAndCostAudit, aligns with the UI version of the report with the inclusion of the No of attachments column.

Enhancements to the Sustainability Program Tracking module

When you copy an existing action to a new action, advanced action fields are included.

For more information about Sustainability Program Tracking, see Sustainability Program Tracking.

A new version of the English Monthly Dataset template report has been released.

This report contains a new layout and tooltips to help you learn how to build your own powerful custom PowerReports to report on your data. You can use this report as a basis for building new dashboards, analysis reports, reporting framework responses, or CSR reports by using flexible Social Metrics account styles.

For more information, see PowerReports.

Updates to ENERGY STAR

The following additional data types are included in both the full and partial API data sync with ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager (ESPM):

Electricity [kWh] - No Scope
Electricity [kWh] - Scope 3
Natural Gas [kWh] - No Scope
Natural Gas [kWh] - Scope 3

For more information, see Collecting data for ENERGY STAR.

Sunset of the basic authentication method for accessing APIs

Sunset of basic authentication method, which uses user name and password for accessing Envizi ESG Suite APIs by Oct 31st 2024. All API connections to Envizi ESG Suite must use API tokens after this date.

For more information, see Access tokens.

September 2024

Updates to Energy Star

For Energy Star, the partial data sync mode now excludes upload of property information to ESPM. For more information, see Uploading data and requesting an ENERGY STAR score.

Improved grid page experience

The default first row selection is removed.

Ten new fields added to the monthly dataset

These include:

CO2 Biogenic Emissions is added to the Emissions table.
CO2 Biogenic Emissions PY is added to the Emissions table.
Variance and Variance % values are added for Area, Distance, Mass, and Volume in the Other table.

Two existing fields updated in the monthly dataset

The Missing Data field moved from Other to the Native Units table.
The Missing Cost field moved from Other to the Cost table.

Ability to disable the creation of non-SSO

Check with your IBM Envizi contact if you require this feature to be enabled.

August 2024

CDP SRM framework released: For more information, see CDP 2024.
Scope 3 AI Assist updates: Scope 3 AI Assist now includes an AI Confidence Score % field in the NLP model output. Download a new AI Assist template to see the new field. For more information, see Adding spend data by using AI Assist.
ENERGY STAR module enhancement: The ability to exclude accounts or meters from API data sync by assigning an exclusion tag has been added. For more information, see Collecting data for ENERGY STAR.
An ESRS framework is available: For more information, seeESRS for CSRD managed framework and ESRS for CSRD managed framework.
Monthly Data grid: A Monthly Data grid has been added to display social metrics. For more information, refer to ESRS summary.
ESRS account styles: The account style covers ESRS 2 and 3 ESG topics. For more information, refer to ESRS summary and ESRS summary.
Social metrics account style definitions: Account styles that help organizations capture more quantitative data with an account are added. For more information, refer to Social metrics account styles.
CDP 2024 PowerReport: Several improvements were made to the CDP report. For more information, refer to CDP Climate PowerReport 2024.
Audit history: The Audit History report includes historical user names that were deleted from the systems.

July 2024

Monthly dataset updates

Market-based emissions are now included in the monthly dataset. For more information, refer to Market-based Emissions report.

Naming conventions changes

The Value Chain Surveys & Assessments module has been renamed as Surveys and Assessments. No changes to the functionality in the module were introduced other than the following renaming:

The Value Chain Portal is now called the Survey Portal.
Issue names starting with VC have been renamed to start with SP, which stands for Survey Portal.
Request Third Party Responses have been renamed to Request Survey Portal Responses.
The Value Chain User role has been renamed to the Survey Portal User role.
The Notification Contact issue type has been renamed from Value Chain Surveys to Survey Portal Surveys.

June 2024

ENERGY STAR module enhancements

The following updates were made to the ENERGY STAR module:

Additional unit support for cf, kcf, kcm, kg, mg/L, MWh, t, tonnes in API.
The primary function of a property can now be defined directly in Envizi ESG Suite before you upload data into ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager.

May 2024

Survey tool enhancements

The Survey tool now supports calculated fields through the use of account style rules, validation of answers, and the presentation on multi-choice questions. For more information about the Survey tool, refer to Surveys and Assessments.

Data Export AddOn availability

The Data Export AddOn has been released. It provides access to the monthly dataset source files. For more information, refer to Data Export.

Programs module enhancements

The following enhancements were made to the Programs module:

Notes and Attachments related to programs, action plans, actions are now available in reports Notes Extract and Attachments Summary respectively. For more information, refer to Adding notes and attachments.
New organization settings are available to hide Estimated CO2e columns on the Programs and Action Plans grids when auto CO2e calculation feature is turned on. For more information, refer to Configuring program settings.
Auto calculated estimated CO2e savings are now included in the Power BI monthly dataset and any PowerReports built on the monthly dataset. For more information, refer to Monthly dataset - Advanced fields.

April 2024

Sustainability Reporting Manager (SRM) enhancements: Additional features have been added to the Sustainability Reporting Manager (SRM) relating to contributor as an additional role, and Microsoft Excel as an additional export. For more information, refer to Disclosures and Exporting a disclosure.
US Climate Leaders factors updates: US Climate Leaders factors for 2024 have been updated. This includes a move from the AR4 to the AR5 GWP values. For more information about managed US Climate Leaders factors, refer to US Climate Leaders factor set
US eGRID factors updates: US eGRID factors for 2024 have been updated to move from AR4 to the AR5 GWP values to be aligned with the latest US EPA guideline published in Feb 2024. For more information about managing eGRID factors, refer to US eGRID electricity factors.
Planning Analytics AddOn availability: The Planning Analytics AddOn has been released. For more information, refer to Planning Analytics and Data Export AddOns and Envizi Planning Analytics.

March 2024

Report scheduling enhancements: Improved report scheduling to take into account Daylight Savings automatically.
GRESB 2024 updates: GRESB 2024 related updates have now been released. This includes the lifting of the 10 locations batch API restriction, performance improvements on API connected pages, and latest GRESB 2024 Real Estate framework related changes. You can read more about GRESB 2024 changes in What's new in GRESB.

February 2024

AI Assist NLP model added for Scope 3 spend-based data: An AI Assist NLP model for Scope 3 spend-based categorization is added which is trained on a new and more extensive data set. For more information, refer to Adding spend data by using AI Assist.
Location grid fields added: New Opened Onand Closed On date fields have been added for locations in the Location grid.
User role display updates: All roles that are assigned to users are included in the Role column of the Contacts & Logins page. For more information, refer to Setting up users.
US eGRID emission factors updates: US eGRID emission factors are aligned to the calendar year for effective and published factor dates. For more information about Managed eGRID emission factors, refer to Managed emission factors.
Record attachment root URL character limit: The record attachment root URL supports up to 3945 characters. This relates to clients who use the record attachment URL link feature.

January 2024

IEA 2023 factors updates: IEA 2023 factors are available and its Indirect CO2e methodology change. The IEA 2023 emission factors are applicable to electricity data with its consumption period starting from Jan-2024 onwards only, when the factors ‘Published Dates’ selection logic is used, which applies to most organizations. Read more about published dates in Assigning factors.
US eGRID factors updates: US eGRID factors include Indirect CO2e values. For more information about Managed eGRID emission factors, refer to Managed emission factors.
ENERGY STAR updates: ENERGY STAR synchronization of historical property use details with ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager is now available. For more information, refer to ENERGY STAR.
Sustainability Reporting Manager (SRM) module enhancements: Several updates to the Sustainability Reporting Manager (SRM) module are available. The updates relate to the approval workflow, access and permissions, email notifications, and the mapping of related questions covering all questions in managed frameworks. For more information, refer to SRM frameworks.