Overview
This US-based bank has been an early mover in corporate sustainability, with nearly 20 years of voluntary reporting – long before many of its regional peers entered the space. Over time, the company has embedded a sustainability mindset across core business functions, recognizing sustainability as a driver of business value creation. The company also sees its transparency and early action as helping peers advance more quickly, contributing to broader industry maturity.
While not mandated to report under broad sustainability regulations, the organization consistently aligns with global standards such as GRI and SASB, and closely monitors ISSB and CSRD as the future direction of investor expectations. As the landscape becomes more complex and more scrutinized, the sustainability team sought a rigorous, evidence-based approach to identifying material topics and guiding their disclosures.
To improve efficiency, validity, and defensibility, three priorities for the team, the bank adopted Datamaran’s AI-driven governance platform.
Challenges
As the sustainability team looked to refine their materiality process and prepare the organization for future reporting norms, they faced three core challenges:
- Subjectivity and Stakeholder Gaps: Earlier consultant-led assessments and literature reviews were valuable but vulnerable to skew. Limited stakeholder representation highlighted the difficulty of capturing perspectives in a statistically meaningful way.
- Resource Burden and Lack of Agility: Conducting dozens of stakeholder interviews was time-consuming and costly. Peers often refreshed materiality every 3–4 years, but the team wanted the ability to update insights more frequently as issues and expectations evolved.
- The Need for Defensibility: Sustainability priorities can be challenged by stakeholders. The team recognized the need for robust, objective evidence to validate decisions and avoid perceptions of bias or political influence.
Solution
The sustainability team implemented Datamaran to bring rigor, objectivity, and repeatability to its materiality process and broader ESG-related insights work.
With Datamaran, the team:
- Conducts and refreshes its single materiality assessment on an annual and often more frequent basis, far faster than industry peers.
- Uses benchmarking and search capabilities to instantly understand peer disclosures, investor expectations, and emerging trends.
- Explores internal versions of double materiality, familiarizing leadership with “impacted by” vs. “impact on” perspectives.
- Provides ESG committee members with rapid, tailored insights, such as changes in DEI disclosures and early-reporting trends.
The platform now serves as an objective, data-backed foundation the team can rely on and point to when questions arise.
Platform Users
Primary Users
- Sustainability Team: Leads all platform activity and insight generation.
Key Beneficiaries
- ESG Committee: Receives customized updates to inform strategic decisions.
- Executive Leadership: Gains evidence-based validation for sustainability priorities.
- Cross-Functional Stakeholders: Access insights without manual research.
- Internal Governance Functions: Benefit from clear traceability and defensibility.
Impact
Datamaran has introduced a new level of rigor, efficiency, and credibility to the bank’s sustainability management.
- Nearly 90% Efficiency Gains: Datamaran replaced days of manual analysis and extensive consultant reliance with a fast, repeatable, internal process – allowing the team to update insights far more frequently than regional peers.
- High Validity and Credibility: By grounding decisions in broad, diverse data sources – across peers, investors, industry bodies, regulators, and other stakeholders – the bank can demonstrate that its priorities are derived from objective evidence, not opinion or selective engagement.
- Stronger Defensibility in Stakeholder Conversations: The organization now has a clear, evidence-based foundation to explain why certain topics are prioritized. While these priorities have not yet been challenged, the team recognizes the importance of being prepared – especially in the current environment, where sustainability decisions may face scrutiny.
- Faster, Deeper Insight Generation: Instead of assigning analysts to spend days reviewing reports, the team uses Datamaran to answer complex questions, such as how peers are evolving DEI disclosures, in minutes.
Results
- Nearly 90% efficiency gains compared to historical approaches.
- Significant cost reduction compared to consultant-led efforts, with the benefit of repeatability and scalability.
- Greater defensibility of sustainability priorities, backed by robust evidence.
- Faster benchmarking and trend analysis, supporting ESG committee decision-making.
Testimonial
“Before Datamaran, we relied on manual research and consultant support, which made it difficult to capture stakeholder perspectives in a statistically meaningful way. With Datamaran, we now have an objective, data-driven process that brings rigor and defensibility to our sustainability processes and priorities. The platform has delivered nearly 90% efficiency gains and significantly reduced costs, while enabling us to do more analysis, engage more stakeholders, and justify our decisions with clear evidence – something that’s becoming increasingly critical in our field.”
– Sustainability Director, US-based bank
Looking Ahead
The organization continues to deepen its use of Datamaran to refine sustainability governance, engage leadership, and enhance decision-making. The team also actively participates in peer learning through Datamaran’s Harbor community – valuing the opportunity to connect with peers and leaders globally and share challenges, best practices, and emerging trends.
For this bank, Datamaran has become a strategic enabler—delivering objectivity, efficiency, and defensibility to sustainability management, while helping the organization stay ahead of evolving expectations in an increasingly complex landscape.