---
sourceDocument: Xanadu Environmental, Social, and Governance Management
sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/xanadu/environmental-social-governance

 Release :

    - xanadu

ft:locale :

    - en-US

ft:publication_title :

    - Xanadu Environmental, Social, and Governance Management

ft:clusterId :

    - esgv

bundleId :

    - esgv

workflow :

    - Technology


---

# Manage entities in ESG Management

# Manage entities in ESG Management {#ariaid-title1}

* Release version: Xanadu
* 
* Updated August 1, 2024
* 
* ![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 2 minutes to read

You can learn about how ESG, which stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance Management (ESG) is used by
the investors and reporting agencies to evaluate different entities that they want to invest in,
such as different business units in an organization.

Entities can be people, processes, departments, or applications. For example, if your goal is
to reduce the carbon emission from the datacenters, then you can consider datacenters as
entities.

As another example, assume you're a company that has subsidiary companies. Your goal is to
measure greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in your subsidiary companies. Both your company and your
subsidiary companies are your entities. Your company is the parent entity, while the subsidiary
companies are the child entities. Typically, the parent entity handles reporting and measuring
the GHG of the child entities.

As part of your ESG Management strategy, you have to provide disclosures to
your stakeholders. ESG Management disclosures refer to the disclosure of data
that relate to an organization's Environmental, Social, and Governance Management performance. These disclosures concern
the goals, targets, and metrics that are associated with your entities. By using these
disclosures and other metrics, the investors assess and rate the performance of entities based on
the ESG parameters.

A parent entity that has the child entities is said to have downstream entities. Any child
entity that has the parent entities is said to have upstream entities.

After creating the entities, you can tag similar entities by individually defining an entity
class for them or by linking them to an existing entity class.

## Entity classes {#entities-in-esg__section_wmn_333_qqb}

Entity classes are used to tag an entity or to add the conceptual information about an entity.
For example, consider a company that has office branches in three cities. The office space is
considered as an entity, while the entity class for these entities is the location of the
offices.

## Entity types {#entities-in-esg__section_kkk_p33_qqb}

An entity type is a grouping of entities that is based on filtering attributes. An entity type
defines a set of the entities that have the same attributes. An entity type is used to describe
and identify an entity that is based on a set of filter conditions.

Consider the following two entity types: Employee and Product. Each entity type has its own
attributes.

For Employee, its attributes are employee number, name, department, and designation. In the
Employee table of the company database, the sample attributes of an employee are displayed in
row E1 as 1001 (employee number), Paul (name), Marketing (department), and PM (designation).

For Product, its attributes are product ID, name, cost, and currency. In the Product table in
the company database, the sample attributes of an energy-efficient product are displayed in row
P1 as 800 (product ID), Solar Panel (name), 200 (cost), and USD (currency).

Entities and entity types can have a one-to-many relationship. For example, an entity called
Hope can have an entity type called Person and an entity type called Organization.
* **[Create an entity](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/h6G2M9G6OJFBFppQiI1L~A)**   
  Create an entity and measure its performance against the goals. Defining an entity ensures that the entity owners are also identified. After an entity is defined, ESG Management goals are applied to the entity.
* **[Update an entity](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/aEDbwWfoOajl7udGuJXX1w)**   
  Update the details of an existing entity.
* **[Create an entity type](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/IDwfpC~hL8xkWqk3sbcDhg)**   
  Create an entity type for the entities in your system. Entity types enable you to find and create entities that have the same attributes and that match a set of filter conditions.
* **[Update an entity type](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/qwOgwpEKI0mUl5sKzYq1iw)**   
  Update an existing entity type to add entity filters, policies, and control objectives.
* **[Create an entity class](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/IfL8jXLp6zNgebRw9R1alA)**   
  Create an entity class that is to be associated with an entity. Define the parent class, root entity, and tier for an entity class.
* **[Update an entity class](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/IR6uqsjMZdGOyYN5R9QgCQ)**   
  Update an existing entity class that is associated with an entity. Entity classes are used to add the conceptual information about an entity or tag the entity.

**Related tasks**   

* [Create an entity](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/h6G2M9G6OJFBFppQiI1L~A "Create an entity and measure its performance against the goals. Defining an entity ensures that the entity owners are also identified. After an entity is defined, ESG Management goals are applied to the entity.")