Reducing the ESG reporting burden for SMEs
The collection, calculation and transmission of CO₂ equivalents along the entire value chain (CO₂e, Scope 1–3) required as part of ESG reporting obligations continues to pose significant challenges for SMEs. Gathering data from a wide range of sources can take a full-time employee up to six months in some cases. A new solution could significantly simplify and streamline this time-consuming process.
ESG Super Tool prototype: ESG-Cockpit automatically imports data for ESG reporting
As announced in an earlier article, akaryon is contributing to the USEFLEDS project. Over the past few months, a technical demonstrator of an “ESG Super Tool” has already been developed as part of the project. The integrated ESG-Cockpit can automatically retrieve electricity and energy data from energy providers via system interfaces, provided that consumers have authorized access to their data.
Combined with the factors and calculation logic already integrated into ESG-Cockpit, this automated data integration enables the efficient analysis of ESG indicators based on automatically transmitted data – and simultaneously in accordance with multiple ESG standards, such as the GHG Protocol, EMAS, GRI, VSME and ESRS, among others.
Presentation at WKO EDAY 2025
Alexander Steger of the Sustainable Development Agency and Anna Cossa of nexyo presented interim results from the USEFLEDS project at the EDAY hosted by the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (WKÖ) in Vienna in May 2025.
The presentation demonstrated the initial technical feasibility of the ESG Super Tool workflow, including its interface with akaryon’s ESG-Cockpit. The process flow using the ESG Super Tool can be illustrated as follows:
Here you can find a recording of the presentation:
Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (2025): EDAY25: Accelerating and harmonizing ESG data collection and distribution. YouTube, 19 May 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07CF7QW8GEc
USEFLEDS: Unleashing Sector-coupling Flexibility by means of an Energy Data Space
The USEFLEDS project, running from 2023 to 2027, is funded under the FFG Digital Technologies 2022 programme. The project is coordinated by Forschung Burgenland GmbH and brings together 14 partners from research, education and industry, including major energy providers.
Among the project partners is Alexander Steger with his Sustainable Development Agency. Together with akaryon GmbH, which specializes in sustainability and digitalization, and its ESG management tool ESG-Cockpit, he has spent the past months developing a technical prototype for data integration, the “ESG Super Tool”.
The technical infrastructure for the ESG Super Tool is being provided by tech start-up nexyo, which specializes in data ecosystems and sovereign data exchange, and Onlim, a Conversational AI platform.
A short introductory article on the USEFLEDS project is available in the ESG-Cockpit news section here.
Petra Busswald of akaryon was not only present at the USEFLEDS presentation of ESG-Cockpit, but also introduced ESG-Cockpit to EDAY 2025 attendees in a separate presentation.
Petra Busswald of akaryon at EDAY 2025 © Florian Wieser and Barbara Lachner