Introducing Reporting Scope and Data Collection in SAP Sustainability Control Tower

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Disclaimer: This blog post reflects the state of the SAP Sustainability Control Tower as of September 1st, 2025.

Why SAP Developed Reporting Scope and Data Collection

SAP introduced the Reporting Scope and Data Collection feature in Sustainability Control Tower (SCT) to address the challenges organizations face when manually collecting sustainability data. Many customers struggled with decentralized, manual processes – often relying on emails and spreadsheets – which made it difficult to ensure data quality, traceability, and compliance with regulatory requirements. The new feature provides an integrated, workflow-based solution that guides users through the process, ensures relevant KPIs are collected, and supports collaboration between central and local teams. 

What Does the Feature Do?

The Reporting Scope and Data Collection feature enables organizations to:

• Define which sustainability metrics are relevant for reporting.
• Configure how data should be collected and who is responsible.
• Guide users through a structured, form-based workflow for data entry, review, and approval.
• Track and manage data collection runs for different reporting periods.
• Ensure data is captured, approved, and stored in a traceable manner. 

Step-by-Step Guide: SAP SCT Applications

1. Manage Reporting Scope

• Define the scope of sustainability reporting by selecting relevant metrics and organizational boundaries.
• Set validity dates and add comments for each metric (e.g., materiality, monitoring purposes).
• Capture the results of double materiality assessments and specify which KPIs require data collection.
• In this simplified example the organizational boundary is set to Business Region EMEA and the Scope Items are the ESRS items Total energy consumption related to own operations - E1-5 - (37)(AR 35) and Total water consumption - E3-4 - (28a).

2. Configure Data Collection

• Assign data processors and approvers for each scoped metric and organizational entity.
• Choose the data collection method (e.g., workflow-based).
• Ensure responsibilities are clear for each data point to streamline collaboration

3. Configure Data Entry

• Customize the data entry form for each metric, including the data collection cycle (e.g., monthly, quarterly or yearly) and required breakdowns by a master data dimension.
• Add instructions and enable relevant dimensions to guide processors during data entry

4. Manage Data Collection Instances

• Set up data collection runs for specific reporting years and periods.
• Define start, submission, and approval dates to control the workflow timeline.
• Generate forms for each reporting period and metric, ensuring timely data collection. 

5. Manage Data Collection Forms

• Preview and send out data collection forms to assigned processors.
• Processors enter data and submit for approval; approvers review, approve, or reject submissions.
• Approved data is published and stored, with full traceability in SCT. 

This new workflow-based approach in SAP SCT streamlines sustainability data collection, improves data quality, and supports compliance with evolving regulatory standards.

Feature status and outlook: Currently, the feature supports quantitative metrics and measures for sustainability reporting. In future iterations, SAP plans to include qualitative metrics and basic custom metrics, as well as additional data entry methods, plausibility checks, multi-step approvals and email notifications based on customer feedback.

For further support, please also visit Data Collection Workflow for Quantitative Metrics | SAP Help Portal.