You are not alone. In fact, you are in the majority. But that majority has a problem it can no longer ignore.
What companies tell us every week
Over the past weeks, our team has held conversations with dozens of sustainability managers across industrial, logistics, agribusiness, and services companies in Spain. Different sectors, different sizes, different ESG maturity. But the pattern repeats with a regularity that is no longer anecdotal.
This is what we hear, almost word for word:
“We have been calculating scope 3 with Excel and a consultant for years, and we need a tool that helps us collect all that data at once.” (Sustainability Manager, Pharmaceutical Company)
“I manage the carbon footprint manually in Excel and it generates errors, but it is not up to me alone to decide to switch to something more complete.” (ESG Manager, Industrial Group)
“We hired an external firm to review the carbon footprint, they detected defects, and now we need to do this right following the GHG Protocol.” (Operations Director, Packaging Company)
“We have everything in SharePoint, all manual… and moreover our clients demand it and regulation forces us, but right now I am overwhelmed with audits and I cannot tackle anything new.” (Quality Manager, Agribusiness Sector)
“We are doing CSRD reporting but we are getting no return on all that effort.” (Finance Director, Power Electronics Company)
“The most tedious part is updating emission factors. That takes us a lot of time and we have to do it ourselves.” (External Consultant working with industrial SME)
“Each cooperative manages its data autonomously, and I try to consolidate it as best I can.” (Group Manager, Industrial Cooperative Sector)
These are not quotes from a market study. They are real sentences from conversations this week.
The pattern: Excel + consultant + pressure + zero return
If you look at these quotes with perspective, the diagnosis is clear:
The company starts with Excel because that is what it has at hand. It works at first: few facilities, few data points, limited scope. But when the scope grows (more locations, more scope 3 categories, more comparative years), the spreadsheet starts to break. Errors multiply, emission factors become outdated, and nobody has visibility into where the data is or if it is reliable.
Then the consultant arrives. It helps bring order, but the knowledge stays outside the company. If the team changes or the supplier changes, you start from zero. And the cost repeats every year.
Meanwhile, the pressure does not stop. RD 214/2025 already requires calculating carbon footprint with 2025 data and publishing a five-year reduction plan. Customers ask for ESG data from their suppliers. Banks condition financing on evidence of environmental management. And CSRD, although Spain has not yet transposed it, sets the standard that the market has already adopted.
What about return? Zero. The company invests time, money, and people in reporting, but obtains no strategic insight from its own data. It is an exercise in compliance, not management.
The difference between reporting and managing
The difference between reporting and managing is the same as between filling out a form and making decisions with data.
Reporting is copying numbers into Excel, sending them to an auditor, and forgetting about it until next year. Managing is knowing in real time how much each facility emits, which supplier has the greatest impact on your scope 3, where are the reduction opportunities with the best cost-benefit ratio, and how you are performing relative to your plan.
When you centralize data collection, automate emission factors, and have a dashboard that updates itself, the time you once spent fighting spreadsheets you now dedicate to what really matters: reducing emissions.
And that is the return nobody is getting from Excel.
RD 214/2025 is already in force. LEIS is not, but it does not matter
An important distinction: many companies are still waiting for Spain to transpose the CSRD (the LEIS has been in Parliament since November 2024 with no visible progress). But that wait is irrelevant for most.
Royal Decree 214/2025 is already mandatory. If your company fell within the scope of Law 11/2018, you must calculate your footprint with 2025 data, publish a five-year reduction plan, and do so publicly in 2026. It is not a recommendation. It is an obligation with consequences.
And even though LEIS remains stalled, the supply chain does not wait. Your customers, your investors, and your banks already work with ESRS standards, regardless of what Spanish law requires.
What you can do today
You do not need a six-month digital transformation. You need three things:
First, audit what you have. Where is your data? Who collects it? How often? Is it reliable? If the answer to any of these questions is “I do not know,” you have a problem that cannot be solved with another column in the Excel.
Second, centralize collection. A single entry point for energy invoices, fleet data, waste, water, travel. Let emission factors update themselves. So you do not depend on one person who knows where each file is.
Third, turn reporting into management. So the data does not die in an annual report, but feeds operational decisions throughout the year.
That is what companies that have already left Excel behind do. Not because they are larger or have bigger budgets, but because they understand that ESG data is not a chore: it is an asset.