How AI is helping PwC clients comply with European Union sustainability regulations

The need to combat global warming is leading to stricter governmental regulations and increased consumer demand for businesses to adopt environmentally friendly strategies and deliver sustainable products. That’s especially true in Europe.

What does that mean for your company? If you’re planning to do business anywhere in the European Union (EU), you may have to deal with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and associated European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). Those regulations require certain companies with a presence in the EU to report their impact on the environment and society with the goal of having companies provide a positive contribution to the natural world and human systems.

“I can see the potential environmental and financial benefits of people wanting to work with, support, and invest in a company dedicated to sustainability,” you say. Then, you look at what is required to comply: Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting along your entire value chain.

The process can be complex, resource-intensive, and time-consuming. It can require numerous mandatory disclosures, thousands of data points to collect and interpret, and key performance indicators (KPIs) to calculate.

You take a deep breath and sigh – knowing those tasks will have to be done manually in your organization with limited resources, which can slow down reporting, increase errors, and raise compliance risks.

CSRD.AI Manager to the rescue

PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH WPG Germany (PwC Germany), part of the PwC global professional services network, faced the same process challenge. In response, the organization developed a solution in partnership with SAP that’s also available to clients as well. The solution is called CSRD.AI Manager. Recipient of an SAP Innovation Award for 2025, CSRD.AI Manager employs automation in the form of artificial intelligence (AI) to make the reporting process easier, faster, and more accurate.

“As with other organizations, we faced difficulties in interpreting thousands of data points and integrating diverse data sources, leading to inefficiencies,” observes Nico Reichen, a partner with PwC Germany. “The situation not only impacted our operational productivity but also affected workforce morale due to the manual tasks. We needed a streamlined, automated solution.”

Creating an automatic winner with CSRD expertise and AI technology

To develop the solution for its network and clients, PwC Germany turned to SAP, collaborating closely with the organization’s CSRD expert team and SAP Cloud’s technical development specialists.

“The CSRD.AI Manager is an impressive example of how the collaboration between SAP and PwC can create a product that helps clients solve complex problems by adopting advanced technology such as AI,” Reichen notes. “In fact, artificial intelligence is the key component of our solution.”

CSRD.AI Manager utilizes SAP AI Core components, as well as the Vector Engine from SAP HANA Cloud for text and embedding generation to automate report generation. SAP Datasphere, SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), SAP Build Apps and SAP Analytics Cloud are also leveraged for AI-supported data collection and modeling and report visualization. It also integrates the PwC Germany CSRD-specific content with customizable data models to meet evolving compliance requirements.

Taking the “sigh” out of ESG reporting

All that expertise and technology adds up to a solution for successfully automating data collection, KPI calculations, and report generation, producing a variety of business, IT, and user benefits. CSRD.AI Manager:

• Enables comprehensive ESG reporting, supporting companies in meeting CSRD compliance requirements and promoting sustainable practices
• Improves efficiency with an automated, cloud-based solution that reduces data processing time and effort as well as the need for complex hardware infrastructure
• Automates many manual tasks, reducing errors and freeing employees to focus on strategic activities, while potentially lowering costs.
• Guarantees a seamless, compliant reporting process, enhancing client trust and satisfaction.
• Utilizes direct integration of the latest AI functionalities directly into existing IT systems
• AI-supported data collection automatically provides information on relevant data to answer regulatory questions in a targeted manner.
• Automated report generation uses extensive KPIs and data points to create an AI-supported report that provides the basis for compliant reporting.
• Enhances data security and integrity across the entire organization

“CSRD compliance used to be a major drain on clients’ resources. But CSRD.AI Manager completely changed the game, automating the heavy lifting and freeing clients’ teams to focus on real sustainability improvements,” announces Benjamin Lösken, Director at PwC and Product Owner of the ESG, Reporting Manager – CSRD.

A paragon of innovation

In an era of increasing compliance demands, the CSRD.AI Manager provides a future-proof, AI-driven solution that ensures efficient, reliable, and audit-ready ESG reporting. For that achievement, PwC Germany was selected as the Winner of  the Partner Paragon award at the recent SAP Innovation Awards 2025 ceremony. The honor is given to partners who’ve developed a next-generation application deployed by customers that uses SAP BTP and is licensed by the SAP Build or Tech adoption program. Check out PwC Germany’s pitch deck for more information on a solution for your business.