Why Collecting Sustainability Data Is So Hard – and Why “Easy” Promises Fall Short 

The process of collecting sustainability data for a portfolio of real assets can feel like a never-ending chore.  

Every month or quarter, data must be gathered: energy and water usage from dozens of buildings, waste and recycling figures, tenant engagement metrics, updates on sustainability projects – the list goes on.  

Most sustainability leads and asset managers have lived through this: chasing utility readings from different sources, reconciling different formats, and managing updates through email chains and spreadsheets. 

 That’s why automation is such a common goal – but only when it works. We know sustainability professionals are tired of empty promises about seamless data flows. They’ve seen what happens when integrations break, data goes missing, or outputs don’t match investor requirements. What they want is a system that’s been built to handle this complexity, with the flexibility to match how their portfolio actually operates.   

Automation is powerful, but only when it’s implemented with a clear strategy and tested against the real-world challenges that managers and investors know too well.  

So let’s break down why collecting sustainability data is so hard.  

A Reality Check on Sustainability Data Automation 

Most investors we meet have already heard someone say “we can pull all your data automatically in a few clicks”. They’ve also lived through the reality: endless follow-ups, half-finished integrations, and figures that still don’t line up.  

The job is tougher than the automation hype implies, because: 

1. Every data stream is different
Energy, water, waste, tenant engagement, certifications – all arrive in different formats and at different intervals. One building exports hourly electricity from a smart meter, another sends a PDF bill once a month, a third still relies on a site manager’s manual read. Converting all that into a single, usable dataset is heavy lifting, not plug-and-play. 

2. Meter infrastructure is messy (and getting messier)
Faulty devices, mixed protocols, and growing IoT fleets make utility data the toughest set to capture. A meter can drop offline without warning, change register IDs after maintenance, or push data weeks late. If your system only grabs the “latest 24 hours”, you miss back-filled values and corrections. Multiply that by X meters per asset and hundreds of assets, and minor glitches snowball into big gaps.

3. Integrations need maintenance
APIs change, security patches break connections, and some data providers limit how much data you can pull – or how often. Unless someone monitors and maintains each link, today’s smooth flow becomes tomorrow’s bottleneck. Many software vendors treat collection as an add-on; when an integration falters, you’re back to spreadsheets while their support tickets pile up.

4. Quality issues lurk behind the numbers
“Garbage in, garbage out” is the curse of every sustainability platform. Duplicate readings, estimated utility values, or unit mismatches can slip through automated pipes. If no one’s validating at source and tracking edits, those errors travel straight into investor reports.

5. Global portfolios add another layer of complexity
Different property managers, utility providers, languages, and regulatory calendars mean data doesn’t just vary by building, but also by region and country. A rule that works for a UK smart-meter feed may break on a German grid export, or a US utility portal. Any automation strategy has to be built to handle those local quirks.

Collecting sustainability data will never be “set it and forget it.” It demands purpose-built tech, data collection experts, and seasoned engineers who know where integrations break and how to fix them fast.  

We’ve spent the last decade wrangling utility feeds, messy meter protocols, and asset teams spread across borders – and built our experience on every one of them. 

Automation Built on Strategy, Not Just Software 

Automation sits at the core of our data service – but we don’t start by connecting any meter we can find. First, we work out which source is best for each job. A smart-meter API might deliver hourly data for one asset, while another building’s most reliable feed is a monthly utility invoice. Pulling everything through the same method often costs more and fails more. So our process begins with a quick audit: 

1. What data do you need, and for what purpose? (GRESB, SFDR, live dashboards, etc.) 

2. Which channels already exist? (Smart meters, building-management systems, supplier portals, invoice PDFs, etc.) 

3. What’s the most cost-effective, reliable collection method?  

Because our data collection experts have spent a decade setting up, fixing, and re-wiring feeds in multiple regions, we know which options hold up in real life – not just in a sales pitch. And our sustainability consultants stay on top of reporting requirements, so the data we collect for you is the data you actually need. 

Once the right pipelines are in place, our platform keeps them humming. Built-in checks flag anomalies (a suddenly idle gas meter in mid-winter, or a kilowatt value that’s off by a factor of ten) and correct simple unit mismatches before they hit your reports. 

Let Your Team Use their Expertise 

It’s worth emphasising that automating sustainability data doesn’t remove humans from the loop entirely – nor should it. Instead, it elevates the human role to oversight and decision-making. This approach frees our team and our clients to spend time interpreting results and strategizing improvements, rather than being knee-deep in data collection.  

Because let’s face it; chasing data is not the most motivating work for a sustainability professional or asset manager. If people are bogged down in tedious tasks, they have less bandwidth for creative problem-solving or proactive initiatives (like identifying efficiency projects or engaging tenants on sustainability).   

It’s also worth noting that manual processes tend to be more infrequent simply because they’re so burdensome and time-consuming. So to save time, some organisations opt to only update their sustainability data annually in a big batch. This means they lack up-to-date insights during the rest of the year – leaving their team with less-than-ideal data to base their work on.  

Get Started with Automated Data Collection 

In a world where reporting timelines are tightening and the amount of sustainability information to manage is growing, automation has never been more important.  

Automation ensures you have timely, accurate data without the grind. For real asset investors, that translates to faster insights, quicker reactions to issues, and more bandwidth to focus on the ultimate goal; improving sustainability performance and asset value across the portfolio.  

Reach out to us if you want to know how we can set up data automation feeds that’s been tried and tested to handle the challenges of the real world.