Integrating ESG and financial reporting for FirstGroup plc

FirstGroup is a leading private sector provider of public transport, the UK’s largest rail operator and the UK’s second-largest bus operator. With nearly 30,000 employees, a fleet of over 8,000 vehicles, and revenues of £4.8bn, FirstGroup carried over 1.8 million passengers per day in the UK (FY24). It focuses on driving modal shift, investing in low and zero-emission technologies, and supporting the UK’s transition to a net-zero transport system.

After implementing the OneStream platform for statutory and management reporting, and driver-based budgeting and planning, Concentric further enhanced the value of the platform by integrating ESG and financial reporting. We successfully delivered an ESG data model that supported collection, consolidation and reporting of Scope 1, 2 and limited Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. The project laid the foundation for stronger sustainability governance and positioned FirstGroup to respond proactively to evolving ESG reporting requirements, including those set by the IFRS and CSRD standards.

FirstGroup plc faced a number of challenges in collecting, consolidating, and reporting environmental data - particularly Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Existing processes relied heavily on manual workarounds, making it difficult to ensure consistency, transparency, and auditability.

Given that Concentric had already implemented OneStream as the Group’s core platform for statutory and management reporting, as well as budgeting and planning, our team were well-placed to extend the platform’s capabilities to support ESG reporting. The strategic decision to build on the existing OneStream environment enabled a more integrated and efficient approach to ESG reporting, by ensuring ESG data was managed alongside financial data within a unified performance management framework.

Key benefits:

• improved data integration and submission process - replaced previously inconsistent manual methods with guided workflows, input forms and direct integrations to improve data accuracy and auditability.
• unified common data model - by housing both financial and ESG data within the same OneStream application, FirstGroup established a common data model which reused existing financial entity structures, creating a single source of truth.
• consistent and scalable reporting and analysis - enabled consistent reporting of ESG data from a single source of truth, supported by a suite of dashboards for key sustainability measures. 
• operational cost savings - improved visibility of ESG data provides tangible insights, for example, analysis of fuel usage highlighted opportunities to train drivers in more efficient driving methods or install technology (e.g. DAS and c-DAS) to enhance driver efficiencies.

The results:

"Working with the Concentric team (to extend our OneStream platform for ESG reporting) has been a smooth and collaborative experience. Their consultants quickly understood our requirements and guided us through the complexities of environmental data collection and consolidation. The solution they delivered not only meets our current reporting needs, but also positions us well for future regulatory requirements and sustainability goals. We now have a more consistent, accurate and integrated approach to ESG reporting across the business. It’s been a real value-add project, and the support from the Concentric team has been excellent throughout."

- Martin Wayman, Group Director of Corporate Responsibility, FirstGroup plc.