Terra Reporting CEO Featured in Q Insights on the Real ROI of ESG Reporting Software
Terra Reporting Co-founder & CEO Wim Geukens was recently featured in Q Insights, the bi-weekly newsletter for sustainability and ESG professionals seeking clarity in the rapidly evolving solution landscape.
In this edition, the Q Interview explores a critical question: What is the real ROI test for ESG reporting software?
The conversation highlights why ESG reporting must move beyond late-stage compliance exercises and become a structured, audit-ready management process — built on reliable data, clear ownership, and end-to-end traceability.
1) What is Terra Reporting, and how does it help companies?
Terra Reporting is a sustainability reporting company founded by technology and digital transformation experts who recognised early that ESG reporting is fundamentally a data challenge.
While many organisations approach sustainability reporting from a legal or taxonomy perspective, lasting impact comes from building a reliable, structured sustainability data foundation across the business.
By integrating Microsoft technologies with deep expertise in ESG reporting and implementation, Terra Reporting helps organisations turn fragmented operational data into structured, traceable, and audit-ready information.
The Terra ESG Platform is our ESG and sustainability reporting platform, built on Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability. It enables organisations to manage and report ESG data in line with regulatory and stakeholder requirements, such as CSRD and ESRS, with clear ownership, controls, and end-to-end traceability.
The result is ESG reporting that is reliable, repeatable, and genuinely useful, supporting compliance while enabling better decisions, risk management, and long-term performance.
2) What’s missing to make ESG reporting useful for the business?
The biggest shift is mindset: ESG reporting shouldn’t be treated as a compliance burden, but as a management tool.
Too often, reporting becomes a late-stage checkbox exercise, data is collected too late, ownership is unclear, and the output doesn’t drive any operational change.
What’s missing is the link between insight and decision-making. When ESG reporting is structured like a management process, with accountability, targets, and regular review, it becomes a steering mechanism. That’s when sustainability starts to guide investment, reduce risk, and improve performance, rather than just producing reports.
3) What did customers need to see before trusting Terra Reporting?
Trust came down to two things: auditability and execution.
Customers needed proof that Terra Reporting wasn’t just another ESG tool, but built for the reality of CSRD, with evidence, controls, clear responsibilities, and end-to-end traceability.
They also wanted confidence that we could execute quickly and stay hands-on. Sustainability teams are often resource-constrained, so progress matters. We earned trust by being precise, transparent, and practical, and by delivering working reporting structures
early, not months later.
4) What’s hardest about getting executive buy-in for sustainability software today?
The hardest challenge is proving ROI beyond compliance.
Many executives believe they can start in Excel and delay software investment until deadlines approach. In the early phases, that can work until the first audit cycle exposes the reality: large, fragmented datasets, limited traceability, error-prone, difficult-to-audit manual processes, and almost impossible to translate into meaningful action plans.
Buy-in comes when sustainability leaders connect software to clear business outcomes: reduced manual effort, lower audit risk, faster execution, and stronger readiness for customers and investors. The most compelling message isn’t “another sustainability platform,” but finance-grade ESG governance.
About Terra Reporting
Terra Reporting is a Microsoft ISV specialising in ESG data management and sustainability reporting on Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability. We support organisations in building reliable, scalable ESG reporting foundations using Microsoft Sustainability Manager, combining technical implementation expertise with deep understanding of regulatory and reporting requirements.
