Vectors of Disclosure: Scenarios, Taxonomies, and the Mode of Existence of Environmental KPIs

Environmental KPIs have long been analysed as socio-technical devices—abstractions, inscriptions, and instruments of action at a distance—rather than as neutral representations of external realities. This article extends that line of inquiry by treating KPIs as technical objects in Simondon’s sense: individuating entities whose stability depends on the construction of an associated milieu of metadata, identifiers, validation routines, and machine-readable infrastructures. Drawing on Simondon’s account of technical individuation and Hui’s notion of digital objects, I reconstruct the concretisation of climate KPIs in European sustainability reporting from avoided-emissions claims to scenario-indexed pathways, sectoral intensities, and ESRS-aligned transition-plan disclosures designed for downstream recomputation. I contrast this trajectory with biodiversity disclosure, where indicators often remain procedural and delegative, outsourcing commensuration to future modelling capacities and to spatial “sensitivity layers” that are still missing or unevenly implemented across platforms. A comparison with impairment-testing sensitivities in financial reporting specifies what a mature associated milieu looks like: discounting conventions and parameter disclosures that render uncertainty governable, auditable, and contestable. The contemporary crisis of sustainability reporting is therefore less a deficit of data than a struggle over the technical milieus—scenarios, taxonomies, identifiers, and platform stacks—through which comparability, auditability, and collective steering are made possible.