Ascend blog

A company accumulates knowledge with every decision, but this memory often remains scattered across documents and employees. Here is how decision-making heritage changes that, and what conversational AI allows you to do with it.

The EU Taxonomy was also simplified this summer, alongside the CSRD, and for the same companies. In this new episode of the CSRD Summer Series, Ahmad Bidawi details how to assess the eligibility and alignment of an activity, what the delegated regulation of January 8, 2026, changes, and why the taxonomy and CSRD are now handled in one single report.

Before co-founding Ascend, Sabine led Vigeo Eiris, a non-financial rating agency acquired by Moody's in 2019. From both sides—the company and the agency—she saw the cost of the proliferation of ESG questionnaires that, ultimately, all ask for the same thing. In this new episode of the Pourquoi Harnest series, she explains why the value of ESG data lies not just in its quality, but in the company's ability to share it with its ecosystem without losing control over it.

A well-designed ESG information system isn't about producing a document; it’s about informing a decision. After twenty years spent designing project and portfolio management solutions at Sciforma, Fabien joined Ascend with a firm conviction: non-financial data only creates value if it helps an organization make trade-offs, track its choices, and take action. This approach guided the design of Harnest, which was conceived as a management support tool rather than a reporting platform.

The fourth chapter of the CSRD Summer Workbook: this week, I am focusing on ESRS S1, the standard covering a company's own workforce, and the practical changes brought about by the revision adopted on July 3rd.

It took financial markets twenty years to mandate traceable, documented, and verifiable data after the 2008 crisis. ESG long escaped this requirement, as it did not carry enough weight in investment decisions. With the revision of SFDR, that era is coming to an end.

After a first year spent getting to grips with the CSRD, the second year raises a new question: have companies fundamentally revised their double materiality analysis, or have they simply rolled it over? The 2026 KPMG study, based on over 50 reports from CAC 40 and Next 20 companies, provides precise, data-driven, and sometimes contrasting insights.

Artificial intelligence does not generate its own knowledge; it relies on the data provided to it. Here are two concrete examples of how structured ESG assets make a difference in day-to-day operations.

Five mistakes appear in the CSRD reports of French companies every year, and they come at a high price: audit revisions, investor inquiries, and last-minute rewrites. Here is what they are and how to avoid them before your next assurance engagement.

Greenly and Harnest both measure emissions and cover CSRD. Their difference lies in the object each platform places at the center of its data model. A ten-block comparison, sources accessed on July 31, 2026: materiality, value chain, management, and auditability on one side; XBRL tagging and regulatory modules on the other.

For over 30 years, Surfrider Foundation Europe has been protecting the ocean, the coastline, and the people who depend on them. Ascend is now supporting them with Harnest, providing this commitment with the same management tools used by businesses.

The same ESG data is increasingly being used for multiple purposes simultaneously. This shift in scale transforms a working document into a shared asset, provided that its quality and usage are properly governed.

Knowing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals is one thing. Knowing which SDG your company is actually contributing to is another, beyond just the icons displayed at the end of a report. Here is another way to use them.

E1-1 requires more than just a promise of carbon neutrality: it demands a roadmap with dated milestones and allocated resources. However, Scope 3 often becomes a roadblock long before the roadmap itself is even addressed, as the necessary data simply does not yet exist for a large portion of suppliers.

Companies produce more ESG data every year than they realize. The challenge lies in their ability to locate, understand, and reuse it from one request to the next.

Three overhauls in three years, a deadline that keeps moving, and a text still before the European Parliament. What this changes for those who have to follow the CSRD on a daily basis.

A fire in the Gironde, a heatwave slowing down a production line, a flood cutting off a warehouse: climate risk affects any company with a site, supplier, or supply chain exposed to the climate. This article details a four-part method to document and manage that risk before it happens.

CDP is adding an oceans theme, expanding its forest scope, and opening the A-list score to SMEs. Behind these changes lies a broader question: the ability of companies to keep up, year after year, with a questionnaire that never stops maturing.

In June 2026, Washington cut off global access to an AI model within days, before restoring it. What this episode reveals about the true nature of digital sovereignty, and what really needs to be audited in a data platform.

Twenty years were enough to transform financial data into governed capital. Non-financial data is now following the same path, with twenty years of catching up to do.

In 2022, including an arms manufacturer in an ESG portfolio was unthinkable. In 2026, not doing so is becoming risky. Sabine Lochmann and General Jean-Marc Vigilant, President of EuroDéfense France, analyze this turnaround in LJA Magazine.

Les PAI SFDR promettaient un langage commun pour mesurer l'impact des investissements. Cinq ans après, chaque acteur parle encore le sien, et tous ont techniquement raison.

TotalEnergies had a published due diligence plan. However, the Paris Judicial Court condemned it on June 25, 2026. What this ruling changes for all companies subject to the 2017 law: publishing is no longer enough; you must prove active management.

GRI, ISSB, ESRS: three frameworks, three approaches, and increasing pressure to address all three simultaneously. This comparison explains what truly distinguishes them, how they interrelate, and why the real challenge isn't the framework you choose, but the infrastructure you use to manage it.

You've produced your CSRD report. Your OTI, however, won't just read it. It will trace each piece of data back to its source, verify who entered it, who validated it, and if it was modified. The question is no longer "do we have a compliant report?" It is: "does our infrastructure meet this level of requirement?"

Double materiality is not a mere formality. It is the foundation of your sustainability report. If poorly executed, it undermines everything that follows. This guide details the methodology as it applies in 2026: what the ESRS require, where companies fall short, and how to produce an analysis that stands up to audit.

You've already been through a first CSRD cycle. You know what it means to manually consolidate data from five entities, prepare a third-party audit on an incomplete trail, or urgently respond to a due diligence questionnaire with figures from a spreadsheet managed by someone who might no longer be with the company. This article isn't here to convince you that the problem exists. It's here to help you quantify it, and decide when to move on.

This article by Sabine Lochmann analyzes the ESG governance models of SBF 120 companies and the highly uneven levels of maturity they reveal across sectors. It was published in May 2026 in issue no. 25 of NextStep magazine, edited by La Lettre des Juristes d'Affaires (LJA).

Last week, we laid the groundwork: what ESG software is, and why a non-financial ERP truly changes the game for executive management. But there's still one question to address: what should the CFO, who drives value, deals with banks, and signs off on budgets, demand from the tool they're presented with? Our answer in 4 concrete requirements.

An ESG tool produces documents. An extra-financial ERP governs an asset. This is not a semantic nuance: it is a strategic decision that directly concerns managers as well as all those who manage the company.

ESG software, reporting tool, management platform... The terms are multiplying but the real question remains the same: does it help you decide, or only document? A comprehensive guide to choosing and understanding why some businesses go far beyond reporting.

Your ESG data reveals much more than your impact: it exposes your strategy, performance, and critical dependencies. However, they are still too often treated outside Europe, without real control. Discover why a sovereign infrastructure is becoming a key issue in securing, managing and valuing your extra-financial data.

Industrial resilience is no longer at the enterprise level, but at the level of value chains. In strategic sectors such as defense, performance depends on the ability to understand and manage complex interdependencies: suppliers, resources, geopolitical constraints, operational continuity. Faced with chains that are still difficult to read and fragmented data, extra-financial data is becoming a key lever for structuring a common language between actors and strengthening the collective capacity to anticipate, finance and act.

Extra-financial data is not a report to produce. It describes the real resilience of your company. In industry, those who understand this secure better financing. The others wait.

The ESG software market is consolidating. Acquisitions, disappearances, uncertainty: the question is not which tools will survive. The real question is what replaces them. The answer: the extra-financial ERP.

22,000 companies, $127 trillion in assets mobilized: the CDP 2025 figures speak for themselves. But behind the scores, a deeper transformation is underway. ESG is becoming a global data infrastructure. The real question is no longer how to report, but how to govern.

The financing of European sovereignty faces a paradox: while the security emergency is essential, our defence companies still too often encounter the filters of inadequate sustainable finance. How to transform ESG, often perceived as a constraint, into a real driver of robustness? Discover why the VSME+ framework is becoming the indispensable translator between the requirements of BITD and the requirements of funders to guarantee our strategic independence.

The year 2025 has imposed on managers of medium-sized companies (ETI) a climate of uncertainty marked by instability and pressure on margins. In this context, sustainability is often seen as a cost center or a secondary option, a simple “vitamin” for the long term. However, as Sabine Lochmann pointed out in her column for Les Echos on 23 January last year, blindness to this data is a major strategic risk.

AI isn't just changing the way people work. It redistributes power at the heart of organizations. When information and analysis are no longer reserved for the top, the role of the leader is put under stress. This article deciphers a change that is already under way and asks a key question: how to exercise leadership when the information advantage disappears?

The current questioning of CSR does not mean the end of ESG issues. On the contrary, it marks a change in status: the extra-financial sector leaves the register of discourse to enter that of management. Costs, risks, insurability, reputation, robustness... these are all subjects that can no longer be treated marginally and require structured governance, supported by new roles and responsibilities.

We spend too much time producing data, and not enough using it to make decisions. With Harnest Companion, AI is no longer content to analyze in the background: it becomes a co-pilot of strategic management, capable of transforming documents, indicators and ESG issues into information that is directly useful to governance bodies.

In the sustainability industry, our collective mission transcends competitive logic. Our common objective is to prepare businesses for the challenges of tomorrow while ensuring the preservation of the planet and respect for human rights. It is with this philosophy that we are extremely proud to announce our contribution to the entire community: we are opening up part of our sectoral generator of ESG issues in open data.

European sovereignty cannot be decreed, it must be financed. Yet many defense companies still struggle to access the capital they need. Ascend joined the EuroDéfense France working group to change that: bringing together defense, finance and territories to build concrete solutions for the industrial players who carry our sovereignty.

The debate on the financing of the French Defence Industrial and Technological Base (BITD) is now taking on a new dimension. Between rising geopolitical tensions, the risk of armed conflict with Russia, the need for a ramp-up, industrial relocation and increased dependence on critical technologies, the central question is no longer just “how to finance defense?” ”, but “how to finance a complete sector in a sovereign and sustainable way? ”

In our “Culture of Ascend Tech” series, we give voice to those who bring our mission to life every day. To share what drives us, what connects us, what inspires us. The article signed today by Boubekeur Boukerma is one of those. A very personal text, born on the trails of Algeria, Brittany and the Swiss Alps. A sincere reflection on trail running, on the beauty of the landscapes we cross and on the responsibility we carry as runners. Boubekeur invites us to look differently at our relationship with outdoor sports, territories and the transition that affects an entire ecosystem: sports organizations, economic actors, partners and communities.

Woke in the United States, weakened in Europe, misunderstood by companies: the term ESG seems today full of everything except its initial meaning. And yet, his heart never changed. This text offers a return to basics, far from caricatures, to understand what ESG really is, why double materiality has confused the message, and how the analysis of extra-financial risks remains essential to any business strategy.

In the world of sustainability, the stakes are high. On the business side: resilience in the face of climate and social risks, ability to finance themselves, to insure themselves, to dialogue with investors and to prove their impact. On the finance side: direct capital to actors who control their risks and their transition. And at the center of all this, one element is decisive: the quality of ESG data. Without reliable, organized and verifiable data, internal management becomes approximate, and the confidence of banks, insurers and investors collapses. We use a simple analogy to explain this path of progression: that of belts in judo.

Ascend is the winner of the Impact NA20 2025 award from French Tech Bordeaux, alongside companies that are shaping sustainable transformation in New Aquitaine. This distinction highlights our vision: corporate sustainability must be managed with reliable tools, adapted to the realities of territories and capable of helping organizations strengthen their performance and resilience in a rapidly changing environment.

TCP/IP allowed machines to talk to each other. MCP allows them to act together. With the rise of AI agents, organizations face a new challenge: coordinating capabilities, actions and entire systems — without friction, without Excel, without email. That's exactly what MCP makes possible for managing extra-financial data.

VSME makes it easier for SMEs to report, but it does not yet allow them to manage. With VSME+, 30 key data points transform the exercise into a strategic tool for sectors and territories. Here is why this turning point is decisive.

In a world where geopolitical tensions are intensifying, the question is no longer just to produce a strong European defence, but to finance and ensure it in a sustainable way. However, at the very heart of our sovereignty, a paradox persists: the Defense Industrial and Technological Base (BITD), essential to our collective security, is facing increasing reluctance from financial and insurance players, often in the name of poorly adapted ESG criteria. How can we guarantee the resilience of our defense if those who protect it struggle to access essential resources?

Everywhere I go, I see the same reality: teams overwhelmed by Excel files, ever more complex reports, days spent collecting... and, paradoxically, an immense difficulty in finding a clear vision to take action. This paradox (too much data, too little actionable intelligence) is exactly what guided our work at Ascend. In this article, I explain how we decided to respond differently.

ESG is no longer an option, but a condition for market access ‍ Midsize companies because they are at the heart of the ESG data transmission chain, whether they want to or not. And this data must be reliable, comparable and useful for decision-making. ‍

SMEs are not followers of the sustainable transition. They are the driving force, because they unite performance, meaning and territory. The next step is not to make them “listed mini-groups”, but to give them the tools, frameworks and partnerships adapted to their reality. It is this mission that drives me every day: to help businesses in our territories to transform constraints into opportunities, and to prove that sustainability is above all a human and local story.

The era of big ESG speeches is coming to an end. What starts is that of management: reliable data, connected frameworks and decisions rooted in reality. Sustainability can no longer be told, it can be measured.

After years of growth, ESG is experiencing a crisis of legitimacy. Withdrawals of commitments, political criticisms, abandonment of labels: the signs of reflux are piling up. But the real problem lies elsewhere: ESG has been reduced to a reporting exercise, when it should be used to manage systemic risks and strengthen the robustness of companies.

ESG data is no longer enough if it remains global and abstract. To generate real engagement, they must be embodied, localized, understood. This article explores why and how to place ESG as close as possible to the territories and actors concerned.