Unlocking Efficiency: How AI Shaped Workiva’s Sustainability Management

At Workiva, our commitment to sustainability is deeply ingrained in our strategic vision. Our 2024 Sustainability Report showcases progress in innovation, people and philanthropy, and sustainability, while also demonstrating how we leverage Workiva AI to enhance the reporting process.

By leveraging Workiva AI within our Sustainability Management solution, we delivered a 54-page sustainability report in less than three and a half months — all while ensuring the integrity and responsible handling of our sensitive, non-public data. In fact, this year’s report was completed 30% faster than prior years with input from over 90 Workiva employees and a multi-stage review. Over 35 metrics also received limited assurance by a third-party data provider.

Jill Klindt, Chief Financial Officer, and Executive Chair of the Sustainability Task Force at Workiva, underscores the value of responsible, results-driven AI: "CFOs and their finance, sustainability, audit, risk, and legal teams are increasingly leading the way in leveraging secure, practical, and responsible AI to drive greater efficiency across their organizations. By modernizing core processes and enhancing collaboration, AI not only boosts productivity but also builds investor confidence.”

Here’s how we achieved those efficiencies in developing our sustainability report.

Using Workiva AI for Sustainability Management

Through our own use of Workiva AI, we’ve seen firsthand how it can improve the creation of complex documents and output quality. Here’s how we used it to streamline and enhance our sustainability report in five key areas.

1. Benchmark peer activity: Reviewed public sustainability reports from peer technology companies to extract key data and themes (e.g., waste, water, biodiversity) for comparative analysis, which was then refined by our Global Sustainability team. This reflects a broader trend among sustainability professionals with 64% reporting that AI helps them quickly consume disclosure data for benchmarking, according to a recent survey.
2. Develop new targets: Drafted and aligned new sustainability targets for maximum impact.
3. Assess alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Rapidly assessed Workiva’s comprehensive alignment with the UN SDGs.
4. Draft new disclosures: Streamlined disclosures and ensured compliance with voluntary frameworks and emerging regulations.
5. Generate initial data-driven insights: Guided narrative development by analyzing datasets directly within the platform, which was then further augmented by our team.

Workiva AI accelerated our reporting by quickly summarizing information, identifying gaps, and suggesting improvements, allowing our team to focus on the narrative of the report. While AI enhances our capabilities, it doesn’t replace human insight. Leveraging AI allowed us to prioritize education and acumen building with Workiva’s sustainability governance groups, and engage more with our environmental workstream to drive actions supporting our decarbonization commitments and 2040 net-zero goal.

It’s important to address AI's energy consumption by choosing a secure, intelligent platform that utilizes Large Language Models (LLMs) from providers focused on sustainable cloud computing, renewable energy, and data center efficiency. Prioritizing these areas aligns AI with strategies for positive environmental impact.

Four Ways to Maximize Generative AI's Potential

As we developed our report, we identified the following best practices to enhance the effectiveness of generative AI:

1. Integration is key. Having AI directly within our data platform and reporting tools boosted our confidence. We could quickly and reliably verify AI-generated insights against our own content and data, ensuring responsible use of even sensitive, non-public data.
2. Prompting matters. It can take several iterations to refine a prompt. By leveraging the Workiva AI prompt library recommendations, we were able to quickly iterate to get the best result from the strongest prompt.
3. Tailor tone and language. AI can quickly adapt messaging to different audiences and formats—saving significant time when shifting between investor communication, social media platforms, and internal communications for employees. AI can also reiterate key messages directly from our trusted source content, ensuring accuracy and brand consistency.
4. Continuous learning. As AI continues to evolve, connecting with peers and AI experts at your company can spark new ideas and uncover practical use cases. At the same time, the more you engage with AI, the smarter it becomes—learning your context, language, and patterns to deliver personalized and high-impact support. To explore how to use AI more effectively and responsibly, check out the upcoming webinar: Responsible AI: Lessons for 2025.

A commitment to sustainability extends to helping other organizations, and our own 2024 Sustainability Report serves as a practical demonstration of how Workiva AI, a core part of our platform, enhances the reporting process for us, as it can for our customers.

We invite you to explore more about AI use in our full 2024 Sustainability Report.