The Challenge

Confronting disparate manual emissions reporting.

Omnicom had successfully calculated and reported carbon emissions prior to working with Credera. However, they recognized it was not scalable. It required a manual effort to pull together the data and depended on a third-party service vendor for calculations and reporting. They needed a better solution in the long term to meet their ambitious environmental strategy.

The previous process required multiple stakeholders managing disparate systems to produce manual data extracts that were difficult to normalize. Even once data was normalized, Omnicom was dependent on a vendor to manage the appropriate emissions factors and perform calculations for quarterly emissions reports and dashboards.

This impacted Omnicom’s ability to frequently view their total emissions and make pro-active, data-driven decisions. They also could not accurately quantify the impact of potential reduction initiatives.

The Solution

Centralizing environmental data and selecting a carbon accounting partner.

Credera began with a discovery phase, which included gathering requirements across the stakeholder groups including environmental, finance, accounting, IT, and legal. After documenting key requirements, Credera explored Omnicom’s data landscape, stakeholder groups’ needs, and strategic objectives to fully understand the project.

The proposed solution consisted of two systems: an environmental data platform and third-party carbon accounting software.

The environmental data platform (EDP) would be the centerpiece for reliable and efficient environmental data management.

To inform development, the Credera team reviewed available datasets for applicable greenhouse gas protocol categories to identify gaps in collection and construct congruent data schemas and tables. Credera engaged internal stakeholders and provided technical support for connecting source data systems to the EDP.

Developers constructed pipelines to pull activity data into a data environment that could easily be integrated with any vendor’s carbon accounting system, rather than trying to integrate the multiple source data systems.

To select a third-party carbon accounting software, Credera facilitated a comprehensive vendor selection process. After narrowing the vast field of carbon accounting options available, Credera identified a shortlist of potential vendors to score using a structured approach to an RFP, functional demonstrations, total cost of ownership analysis, and other criteria.

The selected vendor possessed the right mix of features, technical requirements, and advisory expertise to partner with Omnicom on their environmental sustainability journey.

The Results

Enabling an ambitious environmental strategy.

Credera’s engagement has equipped Omnicom to execute their environmental sustainability strategy into the future with the right tools in place. They are able to control their own data and use carbon accounting software that facilitates emissions tracking, environmental strategy management, and standardized reporting.

They are equipped with:

• A single location for reliable and efficient environmental data management.

• A best-fit vendor partnership to provide advisory support to empower Omnicom’s environmental sustainability goals.

• Leading carbon accounting technology with Omnicom’s desired feature set to perform emissions calculations, display metrics, and produce reports.

• A roadmap to operationalize the environmental solution, including implementation of the carbon accounting software, process design, documentation, knowledge transfer to enable long-term management of the solution, and a prioritized approach for data improvements over time.