Sustainability Business Data Model: AI-Ready Edition

The Sustainability Business Data Model: AI-Ready Edition is for CIOs, architects and transformation leads who need to know what information sustainability work runs on before an AI agent touches it. It covers 14 subject areas, 100 entities, 674 key attributes and 346 relationships. Every entity and key attribute is classified for sensitivity, with the AI uses and data-quality requirements an agent depends on. It is the data-model part of Business Architecture for Sustainability: AI Transformation Blueprint, sold on its own.

What's Inside

The same model comes in three files: the full model in Word, a workbook to filter and extend, and a guide to the scales and the license.

• 14 subject areas and 100 entities, each with a definition, its typical system of record, sensitivity class, AI uses and data-quality requirements
• 674 key attributes with sensitivity and AI relevance, and 346 relationships with cardinality
• Under each entity, the capabilities that need it and the agents that read it, by name and ID
• The Business Data Model (Word): every subject area and entity in full
• The workbook (Excel): subject areas, entities, attributes and relationships in sheets you can filter and extend
• The guide (Word): the scales the model refers to, the data foundation, and the license
• Free corrections, and new versions free for 180 days

Every file names your organization and carries your license ID.

The 14 Subject Areas

The 100 entities are grouped into 14 subject areas. The list gives what each holds and how many entities it has.

• Sustainability Strategy, Materiality & Finance (8 entities): The direction and funding of sustainability: the ambition, the roadmap initiatives that deliver it, the topics judged material and how they were assessed, the program budget, and the sustainability inputs to Finance's decisions (the internal carbon price proposal, capital appraisal effects and financing support).
• Targets, Governance & Policy (6 entities): What the organization commits to and how it is governed: targets with their baselines and every change to them, the objectives cascaded to business units and sites, the bodies that oversee sustainability, and the policies and public commitments.
• Emissions Inventory (8 entities): The records behind the emissions inventory: the operating sites and inventory boundary, the emission sources, the activity data, the emission factors and calculation methods approved for reported figures, each calculation and the inventory for a reporting period.
• Emissions Reduction & Energy (6 entities): How emissions and energy use come down: the decarbonization pathway, reduction opportunities and the projects admitted to the reduction program, energy use by site, energy efficiency measures and renewable energy agreements.
• Climate Risk & Adaptation (5 entities): Climate risk and adaptation: the hazards sites and suppliers are exposed to, transition risks and opportunities, the plausible climate futures the organization chose to test against, the modeled results and the adaptation actions that follow.
• Carbon Credits (5 entities): Carbon credits from policy to retirement: the credit policy, the projects considered, their quality assessments, purchases and retirements.
• Water, Waste, Nature & Environmental Impact (11 entities): Water, waste, nature and environmental impact: water risk and use, wastewater discharges, waste streams and where waste goes, nature impact and dependency assessments, habitat actions, land clearing checks on sourced materials, environmental assessments of projects, site environmental plans and significant incident reviews.
• Products & Circularity (7 entities): Products and circularity: the products in scope, the product and packaging sustainability criteria, the footprint method and released footprints, substances of concern, end-of-life plans and circular offers such as repair, resale and take-back.
• Suppliers & Sourcing Requirements (9 entities): What suppliers are asked to meet and how they are assessed: supplier conduct expectations, category criteria, material origin records, risk ratings, data requests, assessments, corrective actions and referrals to Supply Chain.
• Human Rights & Concerns (5 entities): Human rights in the value chain: salient risks, impact assessments, concerns raised by value chain workers and community members, their resolution and the remedy for people harmed.
• Stakeholders & Communities (8 entities): Stakeholders and communities: stakeholder groups and dialogue, information requests and questionnaires, sustainability partnerships, the communities around sites, community investment programs, grants and social impact evaluations.
• Sustainability Data & Assurance (9 entities): The governance of sustainability data: measure definitions, data source owners, measure values with their basis, estimation rules, data quality issues, data controls designed with Finance, evidence records, assurance engagements and their findings.
• Disclosures & Claims (6 entities): Disclosures and claims: the disclosures the organization makes, the content items in each, restatements of reported figures, environmental and social claims, the evidence reviews behind them and their corrections.
• AI & Digital Labor Governance (7 entities): The governance of sustainability's AI: the AI systems and agents in use, their action logs, the decisions they supported, validation records, human reviews and the authority limits each agent works within.

Who Uses It

Data owners and stewards, data architects, and AI and analytics engineers who need to know what an agent may read, how sensitive it is and how good it must be first; and business architects who link capabilities to data.

How It Fits With the Other Products

The capabilities named under each entity are defined in the Sustainability Capability Model: AI-Ready Edition. The agents are specified in Business Architecture for Sustainability: AI Transformation Blueprint, which contains this data model and adds the value streams, use cases, controls, an operating model and a roadmap. The Sustainability Value Streams are sold on their own too.