The Case for Standardizing the Way We Report Climate and Environmental Data

Send us Fan MailThis episode of Data for the People! explores a problem with climate and environmental data that burdens public agencies and the private sector: Currently, federal and state regulators have a host of different reporting requirements for climate and environmental data, such as data on greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, the data get reported in multiple ways to multiple regulatory entities, which hampers the public's ability to use the data while making it hard to monitor trends and evaluate the effectiveness of policies and programs. Private organizations also pay a price in terms of time and money to report similar information in different ways to comply with a patchwork of state and federal regulations. A recent paper by XBRL.US proposes that the public and private sectors adopt a structured standardized data format to simplify reporting and improve government's ability to measure trends across jurisdictions and data sets. The episode features three guests: Liv Watson, a Senior Fellow with the Data Foundation's Climate Data Collaborative and a co-founder of the Digital Global Single Market Data AllianceCatherine Atkin, a co-chair of the Law x Climate project at Stanford Codex as well as a Senior Fellow with the Data Foundation's Climate Data Collaborative and a co-founder of the Digital Global Single Market Data AllianceMichelle Savage, Vice President of Communications for XBRL.USThey discuss XBRL.US’s proposal to adopt structured, standardized, machine-readable reporting via a semantic data model to improve interoperability, support investors and policymakers, enhance AI use through better context, and reduce a growing patchwork of regulations.We're dropping this episode during the week of DC Climate Week (April 20-24, 2026) when we are co-hosting a full-day event on April 21 about climate and environmental data. Learn more about the event's programming and speakers here.The Data Foundation's Climate Data Collaborative makes climate and environmental data work better for decision-makers across sectors. Our vision is a federated and interoperable data ecosystem where decision-makers have the data needed to drive markets, mitigation, conservation, finance and compliance—one where public agencies provide foundational data and private actors are motivated to contribute. Learn more about the Climate Data Collaborative at www.ClimateDataCollaborative.org. Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalitionThe Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportusFollow the Data Foundation on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/datafoundation