Unifying ESG Data
Transforming scattered sustainability data products into a cohesive product suite.
Role
Lead Product Designer
Time Frame
May - July 2021
Context
In 2019, S&P Global Market Intelligence began integrating sustainability data into its core platform. Until then, environmental and ESG data was distributed as static PDF reports. However as new datasets were added there weren't any cohesive design guidelines in place and the pages started growing out of control.
The Environmental Profile was the first dataset to migrate. It provided an overview of how companies impact the environment, showing costs from air pollutants, greenhouse gases, waste, water, and other factors. The page itself had too much going on and needed to . As I took up the mantle to fix the page, I started creating styles and rules to inform how we could design the rest of the data suite. In the process creating a scalable suite of sustainability datasets.
My Role
This was my passion project. As I took over as Lead Designer for our ESG datasets I started seeing issues both in how datasets had been implemented and how those designs would extend to new datasets. As new datasets came through the ideas started to simmer, but it didn't turn into a system until I took it upon myself to redesign the Environmental Profile.
The Challenge
The Environmental Profile was originally designed to mimic the old PDF reports. But when I dug deeper into the design and data, I noticed:
No consistency: no highlighting or templating in place to guide the user through the pages.
No history or benchmarking: we often weren't showing historical data and benchmarking despite the data being available.
KPI issues: our existing KPI boxes were dated and not flexible enough to accommodate the needs of new datasets.
Expanding scope: new datasets (Carbon, Fossil Fuels, Power Generation) were jammed into an existing design mid-project.
Working through these issues, I saw clearly the parallels to other dataset implementations and I moved forward trying to create wholistic design.
The Challenge
The Environmental Profile was originally designed to mimic the old PDF reports. But when I dug deeper into the design and data, I noticed:
No consistency: no highlighting or templating in place to guide the user through the pages.
Expanding scope: new datasets (Carbon, Fossil Fuels, Power Generation) were jammed into an existing design mid-project.
Inconsistent metrics: overlapping datasets (e.g., Carbon vs. Greenhouse Gases) produced contradictory insights.