That’s not one company’s talking point. That’s an industry’s actual operating record built from data these companies already report to EPA, states, and OSHA every year.

The Sustainability Story Was Already There

Some of these companies are now exploring how to put those trends to use in their own public messaging, and it makes sense why. Traditional sustainability framing is under real pressure right now – from regulators, investors, and the market generally. Narrative alone, without verifiable data, isn’t landing the way it used to.

Hard operational data is a different kind of argument. Nobody can dismiss it as marketing spin when the numbers come straight out of a company’s own regulatory filings – the same information that government enforcement bodies can independently verify. That’s the case an EHS record makes, even if the sustainability function hasn’t tapped into it yet.

Where This Breaks Down

Here’s the problem I’ve seen. Sustainability and EHS operate as two separate functions at a lot of companies, sometimes with minimal interaction. The sustainability team often builds its reporting from surveys, frameworks, and voluntary disclosures. The EHS team sits on the compliance record – incident logs, permit data, enforcement history – data that could back that sustainability report up or potentially contradict it.

When those two functions don’t talk, you often get one of two outcomes. Either the sustainability team may miss a real, defensible story sitting in the company’s own EHS data, or it can get the facts wrong.

I’ve seen the second version play out. A sustainability report I recently reviewed included compliance figures that were materially off from the underlying record, because the report was built without real coordination with the company’s EHS team. In one instance, the company had built its own internal definition of what was counted as a “violation” – one that radically understated how much noncompliance the company actually had. Whether that came from a communication gap between departments or something else, the effect was the same. It didn’t match the regulatory record.

Why That Gap Is Risky

A mismatch like that may not stay quiet. NGOs, plaintiffs’ counsel, investors, and increasingly AI-driven screening tools can compare a company’s public claims against its actual compliance record in minutes, not months.

A sustainability report that undercounts violations isn’t just an internal communication problem. It’s a public statement that can be checked against the government’s own data, and when it doesn’t hold up, that’s a reputational hit at minimum – and maybe a litigation risk. (Ropes & Gray has a nice rundown of where greenwashing claims stand in the U.S. right now.)

The Practical Question

The fix isn’t complicated, even if it’s rarely done. EHS data should be the starting point for a sustainability claim, not an afterthought checked against it after the fact. As has been said, “don’t trust, verify.” If your sustainability team is building a report and your EHS team isn’t in the room, or isn’t even being asked for the underlying numbers, that’s a gap.

The best sustainability story a lot of companies have is already sitting in data they report to regulators every year. The question is whether anyone’s telling it yet.

Until next week,

Doug Parker

CEO, Ecolumix

 

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Coming in future issues:

Citizen Suits: The Supreme Court reaffirmed them, the administration is seeking to rein them in, and NGOs are moving ahead.

Inside a Critical Incident: Regulators build a timeline: pre-incident decisions, technical failure, post-incident conduct. Each phase can signal different culpability. That’s the sequence EHS leaders need to understand.

Questions or topics worth covering? Reach out: doug@ecolumix.com