On October 31st, 2024, the ESG Data Convergence Initiative (EDCI) released updated metrics guidance for the upcoming 2025 reporting cycle. Updates include clarifications on metric definitions, methodologies for collecting environmental and social metrics, as well as the removal of a previously optional metric.
Below are key highlights from EDCI’s 2025 metrics guidance.
Guidance Ahead of the 2025 Reporting Cycle
EDCI expanded its metric guidance to include recommendations for investors in the venture, private credit, and infrastructure sectors. For venture capital companies, EDCI suggests submitting reported information as a traditional GP would on a best-efforts basis. For private credit investors, EDCI recommends submitting data across their portfolio in the EDCI data submission template and specifically identifying when data is sponsor-backed by an EDCI member (and therefore already included in benchmarks) to avoid duplication of data.
Clarifications for Calculating Environmental and Social Metrics
Employee Satisfaction
For the upcoming 2025 reporting year, EDCI added optional metrics about Employee Satisfaction.
- Do you currently collect an employee satisfaction score (e.g., eNPS1, ESI2)? If so, which?
- What was your most recent score?
The 2024 EDCI framework includes collecting data on whether or not a company issues an employee feedback survey regularly. The optional metrics for 2025 can offer additional insight into employee sentiment or provide context for employee turnover rates. Some GPs may find quantifying employee satisfaction through a score to be more actionable.
Employee Turnover
The current guidance advises companies to collect employee turnover data via the “Annual Percent Turnover” metric, defined as:
the number of FTEs leaving the business (excluding those from M&A) over the course of the calendar year divided by the total number of FTEs at the end of the previous calendar year multiplied by 100.
For the 2025 reporting cycle, EDCI has adjusted the metric to be “Turnover” expressed as a number, not a percentage, citing data validation errors. It advises investors to then only report:
the number of FTEs that left the business (excluding those from M&A) over the course of the calendar year.
The adjustment comes from data validation errors that arose from receiving a percentage number. Novata’s built-in data validation measures alleviate data validation errors, and our growing metric library supports investors who want to track the raw number of turnover, or the annual percent turnover for their workforce.
Net New Hires
Another metric guidance clarification for the 2025 reporting cycle concerns the calculation of hiring metrics (“Net New Hires”). Current guidance suggests investors use the number of FTEs at the end of the current and prior calendar year to calculate a company’s “Net New Hires.” While this guidance will still apply, companies can now use the average number of FTEs. EDCI opted to include this additional methodology to align with the Society for Human Management (SHRM) as it gives more context into a company’s employee movement and headcount throughout the course of the year as opposed to just the end of the year. This method offers more insight for companies that experience high volumes of employee movement during parts of the year (seasonal employment).
EDCI also clarified definitions in its glossary of ‘growth stage,’ ‘FTE [Full-time equivalent employees],’ ‘Turnover,’ ’Board members,’ and ‘C-suite members.’
Renewable Energy Consumption
For the 2025 reporting cycle, EDCI included additional guidance for companies who are tracking their renewable energy consumption at a more granular level. EDCI clarified that renewable energy consumption may be calculated using either location averages or supplier-based calculations (similar to how Scope 2 can be calculated using location-based or market-based methods).
Using the location-average method, companies can quantify their renewable energy consumption by identifying the geographic location(s) where their energy is purchased and taking the average renewable energy share of the electricity mix for that geographic region.
Using the supplier-based method, companies quantify their renewable energy by counting the renewable energy only from contracts the company has made with energy suppliers, which includes purchased energy through the use of renewable energy certificates (RECs) or Guarantees of Origin in the EU. More information can be found in the 2025 EDCI Metrics Guidance.
Collecting EDCI Metrics with Novata
As an official Data Partner of EDCI, Novata includes the EDCI framework in-platform, making it easy for investors to collect and report on metrics within the framework. Learn more about streamlining ESG data collection with Novata.
