Operational Sustainability Workspace (formerly ESG Workspace)

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Operational Sustainability Workspace (formerly ESG Workspace)

    The Operational Sustainability Workspace provides a streamlined user interface tailored for various users to manage and track Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) commitments effectively. The home page features quick actions, tasks, and multiple dashboard sections that visualize data related to ESG pillars, helping organizations monitor goals, programs, projects, and disclosures in one centralized location.

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    Key Features

    • Quick Actions: Enables users to quickly document material topics, create goals, programs, projects, and start disclosures. Program and project creation requires integration with Project Portfolio Management.
    • Tasks: Provides a consolidated view of operational sustainability-related tasks including individual and group tasks, approvals (for managers), and watch lists, accessible via the Tasks icon.
    • Overview Section: Displays the status of material topics with associated goals and sub-goals across the ESG pillars, showing whether goals are on-track, at risk, or off-track, with clickable links to related pages.
    • Top Level Goals Summary: Offers detailed goal insights, filterable by ESG pillars, including goal status, progress, counts of off-track goals and targets, overdue metrics, overdue programs/projects, non-compliant policies, and high risks. Non-compliant policies and risks are visible if Integrated Risk Management (IRM) is installed.
    • Target Summary by Goal: Summarizes targets with details such as goal owners, measures, target and actual values, progress, check-in frequency, and last updated info.
    • Disclosures: Tracks ESG data disclosures relevant to investor decision-making, reporting open, overdue, and upcoming disclosures. Disclosures can be filtered by type and state.
    • Pending Disclosures: Lists all disclosures currently pending, with details on their status, type, and assignee.
    • Material Topics: Visualizes the status of material topics based on company selection and type of materiality assessment:
      • ServiceNow Default: Heatmap showing importance to stakeholders vs. business success.
      • Socialsuite: Visualization adapts to the type of materiality assessment; includes filters for reporting period (last five years) and classification (Environmental, Social, Governance, or All).
      Visualization formats include heatmaps for double materiality assessments, bar charts for single assessments, and lists displaying priority, classification, and source.
    • Search Capability: Users can search within the Operational Sustainability Workspace using a dedicated search field, with results shown in a contextual side panel.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    This workspace enables ServiceNow customers to centralize management and reporting of ESG initiatives, improving visibility and control over sustainability goals and compliance. By leveraging integrated features such as task management, goal tracking, and disclosure workflows, organizations can enhance operational sustainability governance, streamline reporting, and support informed decision-making for ESG commitments.

    The Operational Sustainability Workspace is a simplified user interface designed for different users to perform their respective tasks. The home page of the Operational Sustainability Workspace displays various quick actions and reports.

    The Operational Sustainability Workspace displays different sections to provide data visualization for different components. These sections reference the three pillars of Environmental, Social, and Governance commitments.

    The following image shows you the operational sustainability home page.

    Operational sustainability dashboard

    Each section of the dashboard is explained in the following sections.

    Quick actions

    When you log in to the Operational Sustainability Workspace, the Operational Sustainability dashboard is the first page that is available to you. Using the Quick actions section on the Operational Sustainability Workspace, you can perform the following tasks:
    • Document a material topic
    • Create a goal
    • Create a program
    • Create a project
    • Start a disclosure
    Note:
    The options to create a program and a project are available only when you integrate with Project Portfolio Management.

    Tasks

    The Tasks section enables you to view the following:
    • Provides a single page for viewing all the operational sustainability related tasks​.
    • Enables you to view the individual user tasks, user group tasks, my items, and watch list on the Tasks page in the workspace view​.
    • Enables you to view the pending approvals if you are a manager​.
    You can launch the Tasks page by selecting the Task icon on the Operational Sustainability Workspace ()

    Overview section

    Material topics are the areas selected by your company. The Overview section shows you the status of all those material topics that have associated goals and sub-goals for the three pillars.

    Each link is clickable and leads you to the related pages. You can see if the goals are on-track, at risk, or off-track. Using the filter on the page, you can either view all your goals or only your top-level goals.

    Top Level Goals Summary

    The Top Level Goals Summary section provides a more detailed view of the goals and their status. In this section, you can filter your goals by the three pillars. You can see only the top level goals and when the filter is changed, you can still see only the top level goals but the data includes all the child-level goals. Under this section, you can view the following items for your goals:
    • Goal: Shows all the goals.
    • Classification: Shows if the goal belongs to environmental, social, or governance.
    • Status: Shows if the goal is on track or off track.
    • Progress: Shows the progress value of the goal.
    • Off-track goals: Shows the number of off-track goals.
    • Off-track targets: Shows the number of off-track targets.
    • Overdue metrics: Shows the overdue metrics.
    • Overdue Programs/Projects: Shows the number of programs and projects that are associated with the goal.
    • Non-compliant policies: Shows the number of non-compliant policies that are applied to the goal.
    • High risks: Shows the number of risks for the goal.
    Note:
    Non-compliant policies and High risks appear only when you install Integrated Risk Management (IRM).

    Target summary by goal

    This section provides a summary of the targets by goals and their status, owners, measure, target value, actual value, progress, check in frequency, and who is the goal updated by.

    Disclosures

    The Disclosures section provides a breakdown of the different disclosures. Disclosure refers to the disclosure of data relating to an organization's environmental, social and governance performance. Such disclosures enable investors to make informed decisions by identifying companies that may pose a risk. This section displays the following information:
    • Open disclosures
    • Overdue disclosures
    • Disclosures due in 30 days

    Disclosures are of different types and each disclosure has a workflow. You can filter the disclosures using either the By type or By state filters.

    Pending disclosures

    The Pending disclosures section displays all the disclosures that are pending. These disclosures are displayed along with their state, type, and the person who is assigned the disclosure.

    Material topics

    The Material topics section displays the status of your material topics. The visualization format depends on the Material topic selection system property and the type of materiality assessment conducted.

    The material topic selection system property settings are:
    • ServiceNow Default- The heatmap displays material topics according to their importance to stakeholders (Y-axis) and importance to business success (X-axis).
    • Socialsuite- The visualization changes based on the type of materiality assessment conducted in Socialsuite for the selected reporting period. Additional filters for reporting period and classification appear above the material topics visualization.
    You can view material topics in one of the following formats:
    Heatmap
    Displays when a double materiality assessment is conducted. The heatmap shows material topics according to their impact materiality score (Y-axis) and financial materiality score (X-axis). Both scores range from 0-100 in increments of 25 (0-25, 26-50, 51-75, 76-100). Each tile in the heatmap is clickable and navigates to the material topic details.
    Bar chart
    Displays when a single materiality assessment is conducted. This view appears when either impact materiality only or financial materiality only is assessed.
    List
    Displays material topics in a table format showing the priority, classification, and material topic source of the material topics.
    Filters
    When the Material topic selection property is set to Socialsuite, the following filters appear above the material topics visualization:
    • Reporting period: Select from the last five years of reporting periods. For example, if the current year is 2026, you can select from 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, or 2022.
    • Classification: Filter material topics by Environmental, Social, Governance, or All.
    Note:
    Only the material topics in the Monitor state contribute to this report.

    Searching in the Operational Sustainability Workspace

    You can use the ability to search the Operational Sustainability Workspace by using the Search field. To search the Operational Sustainability Workspace, select Operational Sustainability Workspace from the list. The search results appear on the contextual side panel.