Many organisations are doing the work on sustainability. They’re setting targets, improving operations, collecting data and making real progress. But they’re not always talking about it.
Our recent report, Big green fears: Tackling the monster under the corporate desk, highlights a growing tension. 89% of senior decision makers worry their sustainability claims could be challenged, while 85% admit they’ve reduced sustainability communications despite internal progress. This is how widespread greenhushing has become.
And it’s understandable. The regulatory landscape is tightening. Expectations around transparency are increasing. And proving claims, across supply chains, products and services, is complex. But silence isn’t a safe option either.
In fact, 98% of organisations say they’ve lost business because they couldn’t demonstrate their sustainability credentials.
So, what’s the answer?
Well, it’s not saying less, but tracking progress better, structuring your data and communicating it transparently. For many B2B organisations, that starts with a system they already rely on: HubSpot.
Here are five practical ways to use it to keep track of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data.
1. Use dashboards to track sustainability metrics in real time
If your ESG data lives in spreadsheets, slide decks or siloed reports, it’s hard to use – and even harder to share and communicate. HubSpot dashboards allow you to bring sustainability metrics into one place, making them visible, consistent and easy to interpret.
This could include:
- Emissions data linked to operations or suppliers
- Sustainability-led campaign performance
- Engagement with ESG content
- Progress against internal targets
The key is real-time visibility. When your data is live and centralised, you move from reactive reporting to proactive decision-making. Teams can track progress continuously, easily share information across departments, spot trends early and build confidence in the numbers.
Where attribution comes in
This is where attribution reporting becomes powerful. Rather than treating sustainability as a standalone initiative, attribution allows you to connect ESG activity back to commercial outcomes:
- Which sustainability campaigns are driving leads?
- Are ESG-focused messages influencing deal progression?
- What role does sustainability content play in conversion journeys?
This closes the gap between doing sustainability and proving its value.
2. Capture sustainability data with custom properties
One of the biggest barriers to ESG reporting is when data isn’t structured. This can be because different teams hold different pieces of information, definitions vary or metrics aren’t aligned.
HubSpot’s custom properties allow you to standardise how sustainability data is captured across your CRM. For example, you can create properties for:
- Supplier sustainability ratings
- Product-level environmental data
- Customer ESG priorities or requirements
- Compliance status or certifications
This means sustainability becomes part of your core business data model, not an add-on. The benefit isn’t just internal organisation, it’s confidence. When data is consistent and structured, it’s far easier to evidence claims, respond to tenders and support marketing and PR activity. This structure also makes it simpler to align teams around a shared understanding of progress.
3. Use workflows to manage ESG reporting processes
Tracking ESG progress isn’t just about data, it’s about process – who collects the data? How often is it updated? Who signs it off? What happens if something is missing or inconsistent?
Without clear workflows, reporting becomes manual, inconsistent and difficult to scale.
HubSpot workflows can automate and standardise these processes.
For example:
- Trigger reminders for teams to update sustainability data
- Route information for internal review and approval
- Flag gaps or inconsistencies automatically
- Notify stakeholders when key metrics change
This creates a repeatable, auditable process for ESG reporting. This really matters because one of the biggest fears organisations have is not just being wrong about their data, but also being unable to prove how their claims were developed. Structured workflows provide that confidence.
4. Track sustainability engagement through CRM insights
Not all sustainability activity is equal. Some messages resonate and some don’t. Similarly, some audiences care deeply, whereas others need more education.
HubSpot allows you to track how different stakeholders engage with sustainability content across the entire customer journey.
This includes:
- Website visits to ESG-related pages
- Engagement with sustainability campaigns
- Content downloads and form submissions
- Email interactions linked to ESG topics
Over time, this builds a clear picture of what your audience actually cares about, which messages drive engagement and where sustainability influences decision-making.
This is critical for B2B organisations with complex buying committees. Technical stakeholders might focus on data and compliance, whereas commercial teams may look for ROI and risk mitigation, and leadership may prioritise reputation and long-term value.
CRM insights help you tailor your sustainability narrative to each of these audiences.
And importantly, they give you evidence that sustainability isn’t just a ‘nice to have’, it’s influencing real business outcomes.
5. Use HubSpot Campaigns to track ESG performance in one place
One of the most effective, and often underused, features in HubSpot is ‘Campaigns’. This allows you to group all related assets and activities into a single, trackable unit.
For ESG, this is incredibly powerful. Instead of measuring activity in isolation, you can bring together under one sustainability-focused campaign:
- Blog and thought leadership content
- PR coverage and backlinks
- Email campaigns
- Landing pages and reports
- Social media activity
The result is aggregated performance data, giving you a much clearer view of impact. This includes total engagement across channels, clicks and traffic driven by ESG content, form submissions and lead generation, and influence on pipeline and revenue.
It also makes reporting significantly easier, especially when communicating with senior stakeholders or external audiences. Rather than presenting fragmented data, you can show a cohesive sustainability story backed by measurable results.
Moving from green fears to green clarity
The challenge many organisations face isn’t a lack of sustainability activity. It’s a lack of confidence in how that activity is tracked, structured and communicated.
But as our latest research shows, staying silent carries real commercial risk with lost opportunities, weakened credibility and unseen progress. The solution isn’t to say less. It’s to build the systems that allow you to say more, with confidence.
Platforms like HubSpot play a central role in that shift by:
- Centralising sustainability data
- Structuring how it’s captured and managed
- Connecting it to commercial outcomes through attribution
- Tracking engagement across the buyer journey
- And reporting performance in a clear, aggregated way
They enable organisations to move from green fears to green clarity, and in doing so, unlock something far more valuable than compliance: trust, credibility and growth.
Do you need a hand with keeping track of your ESG progress? Our HubSpot experts can help. Contact us today.
Alexander Costello
Ellie Smith
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