Avalara, Inc., a leader in modern tax compliance automation, today announced its partnership with Kellogg College at the University of Oxford, which is exploring how businesses can tap into their transaction data to enhance the accuracy and credibility of carbon emissions and other reporting.
Sustainability has evolved into a reporting challenge for businesses, as there is presently no effective mechanism for auditing the sustainability claims made by global organizations. As a result, it’s imperative that the reliability and transparency of sustainability data be enhanced. Avalara funded Oxford University’s Commission on Sustainability Data to help companies better understand how they can access reliable data on operational performance. This is important for emissions reporting and a range of other business imperatives, most notably the use of AI, whose outputs will depend on the quality of the data used.
By funding this research, Avalara is pioneering new ways to transform raw transaction data into verified business intelligence that opens doors, empowering banks to make faster lending decisions, regulators to gain confidence in compliance, and trading partners to see proof of performance in real time.
“Through our partnership with Kellogg College at the University of Oxford, we are putting the power of provable truth in the hands of global organizations, enabling companies to create a dataset that they have complete control over, while ensuring they are still able to prove it is complete, accurate and unaltered from the source systems,” said Ross Tennenbaum, President of Avalara. “We are excited to scale this method to businesses around the world and strengthen a growing network of trusted transactions.”
The ongoing project aims to empower customers to build a database that not only provides greater control and insight into their business operations, but also allows a company to prove the data is truthful to third parties, potentially lowering cost of capital, allowing supply chains to be insured, and optimizing how the company can engage with millions of other companies.
“As regulatory frameworks evolve to meet the demands of climate accountability, the need for auditable, machine-readable sustainability data has become both a policy and business imperative,” said Professor Jonathan Michie, President of Kellogg College Oxford and Chair of the Commission on Sustainability Data. “Through this commission, generously supported by Avalara, we are examining how enterprise systems—particularly those rooted in transactional accuracy—can anchor a new paradigm of verifiable data. This collaboration reflects a shared commitment to advancing trust infrastructure at a global scale.”
Avalara’s tax compliance expertise, together with partners like SAP, has the potential to transform transactional data into accurate, verifiable sustainability insights. Existing technology solutions like SAP Green Ledger already integrate carbon and financial data to enhance transparency.
“Avalara’s tax compliance expertise—amplified by partners like SAP—is unlocking a new era of sustainability intelligence,” said David Imbert, Head of Finance Product Marketing at SAP. “Technology solutions like SAP Green Ledger help empower organizations to integrate sustainability into core business processes by combining trusted financial data with granular carbon insights. This makes carbon data not just transparent, but pivotal to strategic planning, capital allocation, and long-term value creation.”
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