Case Study: Cognizant achieves rigorous, SEC‑grade ESG reporting with Workiva

Bringing the Rigor of Financial Reporting to ESG Reports

Cognizant, facing growing investor pressure for transparent sustainability disclosures, found its first ESG report in 2020 a difficult, manual undertaking that involved a dozen stakeholder teams, fragmented data sources, and risks of human error and information leaks. Leadership made ESG a priority and sought a way to make ESG reporting as rigorous and auditable as its SEC filings.

Cognizant extended its use of the Workiva platform—already trusted for SEC reporting—to centralize data collection, map metrics to frameworks (SASB, TCFD, GRI), enforce permissions, capture audit trails, and connect vendor systems via APIs. The result: a secure, end-to-end ESG process with streamlined data flows, subject-matter expert attestations, stronger controls, and more reliable, audit-ready reporting that aims to present ESG metrics with the same rigor as financials.

Cognizant

Aya Kiy

Associate Director