The Verdict from Trellis Impact ’25:

The Market is Ready for Digital ESG

Direct insights from regulators, consultants, and corporate leaders on the future of XBRL.

San Jose, CA — This year, Trellis Impact ’25 brought together the worlds of climate tech (VERGE), nature solutions (Bloom), and sustainable finance (GreenFin) into a single, powerful forum.

For the team at Briskflow.ai, this wasn’t just an opportunity to listen; it was a chance to engage directly with the people shaping the future of sustainability reporting. We wanted to move past the buzzwords and understand the real-world readiness for structured data.

Is XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) just a compliance box to check, or is it becoming a strategic asset? To find out, we went straight to the source.

We asked the three pillars of the reporting ecosystem—regulators, consultants, and corporate end-users—about their stance on XBRL tagging. Here is what we learned.

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1. The Regulator’s View: The Infrastructure is Built

There has been speculation about how material XBRL will be for emerging regulations like California’s SB-253. We asked regulators from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) directly.

Their answer was definitive: XBRL is central to the roadmap.

They confirmed that the taxonomy has been developed and, crucially, the tool for companies to submit SB-253 disclosures in XBRL format is already in place. The message to the market is clear: digital submission is not an afterthought; it is the mechanism for accountability.
2. The Consultant’s View: Driven by Client Demand
We asked top sustainability consultants what they are hearing from their clients on the ground. Are companies resisting the move to digital tagging?

The response was quite the opposite. Consultants told us their clients want to incorporate XBRL tagging into their reporting cycles now.

3. The Corporate View: Proactive & Future-Ready

Perhaps the most encouraging feedback came from the corporate leaders and end-users themselves. When we asked if they saw value in XBRL tagging beyond simple compliance, the consensus was strong.

Leading organizations want to be "proactive and future-ready."

For companies operating across multiple geographies, XBRL is already an expectation. They view high-quality, tagged data as a way to strengthen their brand, build trust with stakeholders, and streamline their Investor Relations (IR) communications.
Our Takeaway
The conversations at Trellis Impact ’25 confirmed what we at Briskflow.ai have long believed: The era of static, PDF-based sustainability reporting is ending.

The alignment is striking:

At Briskflow.ai, we are energized by this momentum. We are more committed than ever to providing the intelligent, streamlined tagging solutions that help organizations meet this new standard of trust.

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Join the Conversation

Did you attend Trellis Impact '25? We’d love to hear your takeaways.

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