Asana Launches ESG Chatbot: Will This Improve Sustainability Communications?

Let's face it — corporate reports can be a slog to get through. 

Even with beautiful charts and digestible sections, asking stakeholders to read an annual report in its entirety can be a tough ask. Realistically, most readers skim. 

Moreover, articles — much shorter than most reports — struggle to hook readers. Only 2 out of 10 read past the headline, according to Copyblogger.

So what can you do when you're trying to convey important details about your corporate sustainability efforts that you don't want stakeholders to miss?

One possible solution that software company Asana rolled out is offering an AI chatbot in conjunction with its annual ESG report. 

"ESG and sustainability disclosure is tailored to sophisticated investors and customers using the data in their due diligence processes. It's not designed to be used by a regular person, who often just wants to know about a singular topic, such as carbon emissions or diversity and inclusion," says Sean McPhillips, ESG lead at Asana.

"They shouldn't have to search a 50+ page report to find the answer; they should be able to ask a question and have someone explain it to them. That's what our chatbot accomplishes," he adds. 

The chatbot is available on Asana's investor relations ESG landing page, where you can ask it questions, based on the chatbot referencing Asana's FY24 ESG Report. 

"The beauty of it is that you don't need any level of sophistication — you can just have a conversation, and the bot will guide you toward the content it's knowledgeable about. The conversation could start with a question as simple as 'what can you tell me about sustainability at Asana?'" said McPhillips.

When I asked the chatbot that question, the reply I got was:

"Asana focuses on several key areas to drive sustainability, including achieving carbon neutrality, sourcing 100% renewable electricity, reducing business travel emissions, and working closely with suppliers to minimize environmental impact. They are committed to transparency and continuous improvement, as detailed in their ESG Report. Would you like to dive into any specific sustainability initiatives?"

In reading the Climate impact section of the report in full, that does seem to be a pretty good summary. But the chatbot isn't perfect. 

For one, the report doesn't exactly say that Asana is trying to reduce business travel emissions, or at least doesn't specify how the company plans to accomplish that. Instead, the report focuses more on how the company is reducing employee commuting emissions, while noting that Scope 3 emissions from business travel increased due to more flights.

And how you interact with the chatbot matters. 

For example, I asked what Asana's emissions are, and after receiving those numbers, I asked how it compared to FY 2023. Part of the chatbot's reply was:

"In FY 2024, Asana's total Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions were 31,193 tons CO2 (location-based), compared to FY 2023 where business travel emissions saw an increase due to an accelerated transition to an enterprise direct sales distribution model."

To me at least, that makes it sound like emissions were higher in FY 2023. But that's not the case. I rephrased the question to "How did Asana's emissions this year compare to last year?" and the chatbot replied nearly identically, but a slight change in punctuation and wording made all the difference:

"In FY 2024, Asana’s total Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions were 31,193 tons CO2 (location-based). Compared to FY 2023, Asana saw an increase in business travel emissions due to the transition to an enterprise direct sales distribution model."

That reply accurately reflects that Scope 3 emissions increased in FY 2024, due in part to more business travel. Though as the chatbot also pointed out, "Scope 2 emissions decreased by 30% due to more efficient office energy use."

So it seems like the chatbot could be useful for getting some quick answers and help you easily digest the report, but it's hard to fully rely on it, considering the potential for misinterpretations.

Perhaps you could use the chatbot to figure out what parts of the report are interesting to you, and you can then read the relevant sections in the actual report.

Both companies and individuals are still figuring out how to use AI, so it's understandable if the chatbot has some flaws, but if nothing else, it's a positive step toward making sustainability communications more accessible. 

And going forward, AI could be useful for saving companies time on ESG reporting, especially as compliance requirements increase around climate disclosures.

"In the future, AI will take much of the ESG reporting burden off of companies by automating the review of ESG ratings and customer questionnaires," says McPhillips.

Disclosure: Our parent company, JournoContent LLC, has clients involved in sustainability-related areas, among others. The owner of Carbon Neutral Copy, Jacob (Jake) Safane, has investments in AI and sustainability-related companies, among others.

As such, conflicts of interest related to these and other investments/business relationships, even if unintended, may exist at times. Please email info@carbonneutralcopy.com if you'd like further clarification on any issues.