VSME report, step 2 (2): Different consolidation circles

A crucial feature in setting up your VSME data collection is to make use of different consolidation circles. What does this mean?

In practice, it means you can send different data points to different groups with one click after having set up the data collection. 

An example:

Within the VSME, a company needs to provide data for a lot of environmental KPIs on the one hand, and social KPIs on the other. Let's imagine that your company has multiple subsidiaries, and those subsidiaries each have multiple different locations. Your organisational structure in EQS Sustainability Cockpit for that reason looks something like this:

Since you are already used to report on social KPIs, you are already collecting relevant HR numbers, e.g. number of employees, pay gap, etc., at the level of the subsidiaries, based on inputs from the locations. This means that it is not necessary to reach out to the locations for the social data, but reaching out to the subsidiaries is enough. Hence, for all data points that this applies to you select aggregate and would select subsidiaries here:

Let's assume that, at the same time, you have not been so active in collecting environmental data across your company yet. This means you will collect many environmental KPIs across your company for the first time and, as a result, will have to collect e.g. energy or water consumption data from not just your subsidiaries, but also your locations, so that all inputs are aggregated to one sum at group level. To do so, for all data points that this applies to you select aggregate and would select Entities / Locations here: