Peoples Emergency Briefing Event: Join us on 6 May in London for an exclusive screening of this landmark new film.Get tickets now
If you work in a complex corporate environment, you know that unified reporting is rarely simple. Entities often operate with different data infrastructures, operating procedures, and varying sizes, all while sharing the same office spaces.
This is typically the case with the many complex clients we work with in the Media, Marketing, and Advertising (MMA) space and professional companies, where global networks consist of multiple agencies or branches spread across many geographies.
From an ESG perspective, this heterogeneity is a significant hurdle. Some data is neatly centralised at group level, whilst other vital metrics sit at the agency-level. Collecting this information and ensuring it is granular enough to meet ESG disclosure requirements typically requires countless hours of manual “unpicking.”
Here are the typical challenges of building an ESG data infrastructure for agency networks, and how we’ve helped clients overcome these challenges at 51toCarbonZero.
When faced with fragmented data, often the best approach is to hit pause. Before you collect anything, define your rules:
Establishing these rules before you collect helps serve as the architectural blueprint for your ESG report, and ensures every piece of ingested data “snaps” into the correct place. At 51toCarbonZero, we ensure our carbon and ESG modules are fully tailorable to this pre-defined granularity, creating a strict, audit–ready trail from day one. Our implementation process is tailored for MMA and professional services companies, built on decades of direct experience in these sectors.
One of the biggest hurdles in a group structure is disparate data systems. Agency A might use a modern expense platform for travel, while Agency B just keeps a folder of PDFs.
A robust infrastructure should act as a harmoniser rather than forcing every entity to change its workflow. Our platform integrates directly with various finance, HR, and procurement systems via APIs, translating chaotic formats into a single, unified carbon language.
Agencies frequently occupy the same building – sometimes on discrete floors, sometimes in integrated “hot-desking” environments. How do you divide a single electricity bill among multiple occupying agencies to ensure agency level reporting?
Historically, this required manually apportioning data based on square footage or Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) headcount every month. To eliminate this headache and free up time for actual strategy, we’ve automated this process. During setup, you map your active office spaces and FTE counts; our calculation engine then automatically apportions the total building utilities to the correct agency.
Chasing raw data and verifying anomalies via email is inefficient and risks losing the audit trail. We’ve embedded governance directly within our platform through tiered roles:
This structure keeps the entire communication loop and audit history securely within the platform.
Group networks are often decentralised to give agencies autonomy, which can lead to varying data quality and reporting requirements. One agency might face rigorous mandatory reporting (e.g., CSRD, SECR, or BEGES), another might complete voluntary disclosures (e.g., CDP or EcoVadis), while a third might be starting its measurement journey.
To solve this, 51toCarbonZero utilizes a Parent-Child architecture. Each agency operates as a “child” account with its own data collection processes and bespoke reports. Meanwhile, the “parent” (group level) retains a single pane of glass to view and aggregate all emissions across the entire network.
Carbon data has evolved from a regulatory “tick-box” into a commercial imperative. Today, it is baked directly into RFPs, with clients increasingly demanding emissions data specific to their own projects or purchased services.
Relying on generic, group-level reports is no longer enough to stay competitive or build long-term trust. By establishing data from the bottom up, we empower individual agencies to generate granular, client-specific footprints – providing the transparency required to win high-stakes pitches and strengthen strategic partnerships.