Air Quality in ESG Reporting: A Practical Guide for Sustainability Report Writers

Air quality in managed spaces has become a significant line item in sustainability reports. Not only for ethical reasons, but because regulatory frameworks — GRI, ESRS, TCFD — are beginning to require measurable data on indoor environments. This guide explains how to set up reporting correctly.

Why Air Quality Is Relevant for ESG

The CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive), applicable to large companies from 2024 and SMEs from 2026, requires disclosure on all environmental topics that are material to the business. For operators of high-footfall infrastructure — shopping centres, airports, stations, corporate campuses — indoor air quality is a materiality that is difficult to ignore.

On the 'S' side of ESG (social), the health and safety of workers (GRI 403) and the wellbeing of communities affected by operations are explicitly required. Air quality in workspaces falls under both categories.

Reference Frameworks

GRI 403 — Occupational Health and Safety

GRI 403 requires the reporting of identified health hazards, measures taken to reduce them, and outcome indicators (incidents, occupational diseases). Particulate matter in enclosed environments is a physical hazard that must be assessed and managed with documented evidence.

ESRS E1 — Climate Change and Air Quality

The ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards) include ESRS E1 for climate topics and ESRS E2 for pollution. Air quality in managed spaces falls under ESRS E2, with an obligation to report measures taken to reduce local pollutant emissions.

Operational Metrics to Include in the Report

A complete ESG report on air quality should include: the average PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations in monitored spaces (µg/m³), the number of hours per year in which WHO limits are exceeded, the PM actively removed by purification systems (kg/year), and comparison with the pre-intervention baseline.

If you are starting from scratch, the starting point is installing certified IoT sensors that record data continuously and export it in structured format (CSV, REST API). E-Bufaga devices natively integrate this functionality: each unit transmits hourly data to a dashboard accessible by the ESG team.

How to Build the ESG Narrative

Quantitative data is necessary but not sufficient. The best ESG reports contextualise the numbers: how many employees benefit from improved air quality? What is the avoided health risk in terms of lost working days? How does it translate into value for the surrounding community?

Bufaga provides its partners with certified reporting covering all these data points, ready to be included in the sustainability report without further processing.

Downloadable ESG Template

We have prepared an Excel/Google Sheets template with the columns required by the main frameworks (GRI 403, ESRS E2) and formulas to automatically calculate the derived indicators. It is free: you can download it from the resources page or receive it by email.