Technology Portfolio Management (TPM) Best Practices

Overview

Technology portfolio sustainability data — hardware energy consumption, e-waste volumes, cloud carbon intensity, vendor sustainability assessments, ITAD disposition records — is the raw material for a significant portion of the environmental and governance metrics that enterprise ESG reporting frameworks require organizations to report. Organizations that maintain this data as a continuous governance discipline within the TPM program are substantially better positioned to meet their ESG reporting obligations than organizations that must assemble sustainability data retrospectively for each reporting cycle from incomplete and inconsistently maintained sources.

Best Practice

Connect technology portfolio sustainability data to the enterprise ESG reporting process through defined data flows that deliver the specific metrics required by the ESG reporting frameworks applicable to the organization. The primary frameworks that technology sustainability data supports include: the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which mandates reporting on environmental matters including energy consumption and waste for large organizations operating in the EU; the Global Reporting Initiative standards, particularly GRI 302 (Energy), GRI 305 (Emissions), and GRI 306 (Waste); and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures framework, which requires disclosure of climate-related risks and opportunities including technology infrastructure dependencies. (Sources: EU CSRD Directive 2022/2464; Global Reporting Initiative; Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.) Define the specific data attributes in the Technologies Inventory family that map to each required ESG reporting metric, and establish the governance process that ensures those attributes are maintained with the accuracy and completeness the reporting frameworks require.

Benefit(s)

Connecting technology portfolio sustainability data to the enterprise ESG reporting process converts the TPM program from an IT governance discipline into an enterprise ESG enabler. Technology portfolio data contributes to sustainability disclosures with the accuracy and completeness that reporting frameworks require rather than creating gaps in ESG reporting that must be filled with estimates or omissions. Leadership can represent the organization’s technology-related sustainability performance with confidence because the data underlying those representations is governed, auditable, and maintained continuously. And the ESG reporting obligation creates a governance forcing function that ensures sustainability data quality is maintained rather than allowed to degrade between reporting cycles.