Building a global ESG policy tracker

ESG regulation moves fast: CSRD, SFDR, TCFD, SEC climate rules, and dozens of national schemes — each with its own timeline, scope and acronym soup.

The brief I set myself: one screen where the whole regulatory landscape makes sense.

The approach

• Structured extraction — an AI research pipeline reads policy documents and extracts jurisdiction, topic, status, key dates and obligations into a consistent schema.
• Topic-by-topic research — policies are researched per jurisdiction and per theme (energy, disclosure, buildings, finance) so coverage is systematic, not anecdotal.
• Design for scanning — colour-coded topics, a filterable sidebar, and cards that expand into full policy profiles.

What I learned

The hardest part wasn't the data or the code — it was the taxonomy. Deciding what counts as one policy versus three amendments determines whether the visual tells the truth. Data design is mostly deciding what things are.