Building confidence in sustainability data: How ISEAL members are strengthening data reliability through the Data Maturity Rubric
From data silos to shared insight – ISEAL members are raising the bar for high-quality, transparent and interoperable data, ensuring that sustainability data is trusted, comparable, and used with confidence.
Sustainability claims and impact metrics are only as strong as the data behind them. Governments, companies, and investors require trusted, high-quality sustainability data to guide responsible sourcing, assess environmental and social impact, and meet new regulatory requirements such as the EU Deforestation Regulation and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
To meet these demands, sustainability systems must not only collect data but also manage it well, with clear governance, consistent documentation and confidence in data accuracy and traceability.
The ISEAL Data Maturity Rubric (DMR) provides a practical way to achieve that goal. Unlike a compliance checklist, it offers a learning-oriented pathway. Available to ISEAL members, the DMR helps them to identify their current data capabilities, prioritise improvements, and chart a path toward more reliable, transparent, and interoperable data practices.
The rubric helps prepare for a future where sustainability data can move between systems while keeping its integrity and context.
From managing data to building trust
At its heart, the DMR is a self-assessment and learning tool, offering a common reference for internal improvement and external collaboration. It supports ISEAL members to evaluate their data practices across three themes – data culture, data structure, and data use – and covers 18 topics, from governance, security, and data quality to documentation, discovery, analysis and responsible sharing.
The real value lies in what this means for the broader sustainability ecosystem:
- Better quality and consistency mean data can be reused with confidence.
- Improved transparency means claims and metrics can be verified more easily.
- Clear governance and documentation reduce duplication and confusion across systems.
As sustainability reporting becomes more digital, the DMR helps ISEAL members prepare for an evolving landscape where data must be credible, connected, and verifiable; ready to integrate with emerging global frameworks for transparent and trusted data exchange.
The rubric serves as a shared roadmap for transforming data capabilities. It provides a common tool through which ISEAL members can measure progress, learn collectively, and lead with confidence. By establishing a shared language and structure, it advances alignment across diverse systems while remaining technology neutral and fosters robust peer-learning that accelerates system improvements.
Why this matters for data users
For companies, regulators, and investors who rely on sustainability information, the ISEAL member adoption of the DMR offers a clear signal that they are actively investing in the governance and systems that make data more trustworthy and interoperable.
| Data user group | What improves through DMR |
|---|---|
| Companies & buyers | Greater reliability and comparability of certification and traceability data for due diligence and reporting systems. |
| Investors & financial institutions | More consistent, well-governed data supports stronger ESG metrics and transparency in impact reporting. |
| Policymakers & regulators | Clearer documentation and standardised data formats facilitate reporting and reduce uncertainty around claims. |
| Researchers & civil society | Access to well-described datasets improves evidence-based analysis and understanding of sustainability performance. |
| Assurance & accreditation bodies | Stronger data governance enhances consistency in auditing and verification across schemes. |
Collectively, these improvements make sustainability data more usable and comparable, turning fragmented information into an asset that supports better decisions across global value chains.
A collective commitment to data you can trust
For sustainability data worldwide, the DMR is a quiet, but powerful signal: when data comes from an ISEAL member, it comes from a system actively working to ensure quality, transparency and accountability; building confidence in every claim, dataset and decision to help shape a more sustainable future.
Supported by
This work was made possible through generous funding from the Swiss Secretariat of Economic Affairs.