CASE STUDY
ESG Questionnaire Management
How a global industrial manufacturer replaced inbox-driven questionnaire coordination with a governed, AI-supported disclosure workflow — improving response turnaround, accountability, and institutional knowledge reuse
INDUSTRY
Industrial Manufacturing
Employees
8,100+
Since
2021
90%
Reduction in manual questionnaire intake and distribution effort
3→1 mo
Response turnaround improvement during initial deployment
10/mo
Disclosure requests managed through initial deployment
Executive Outcome Summary
As ESG disclosure expectations expanded beyond annual reporting cycles, Kennametal faced growing volumes of customer questionnaires, investor requests, supplier inquiries, and third-party disclosure requirements across a global industrial operation. Existing spreadsheet- and email-based processes made it increasingly difficult to coordinate ownership, maintain consistency, and preserve institutional knowledge for reuse. Working with the Benchmark Gensuite team, Kennametal implemented Responsio with Genny AI to establish a governed disclosure response workflow — introducing structured intake, role-based collaboration, reusable approved responses, and AI-assisted drafting while maintaining human review and governance at every stage. During initial deployment, the organization reported a 90% reduction in manual questionnaire intake and distribution effort, response turnaround reduced from approximately three months to one month, and approximately ten disclosure requests managed monthly, with plans to expand the solution globally.
Managing ESG Disclosure Across a Global Industrial Enterprise
Founded in 1938 and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Kennametal Inc. is a global industrial technology company with approximately 8,100 employees serving customers in nearly 100 countries. The company delivers productivity through materials science, tooling, and wear-resistant solutions, serving industries including aerospace and defense, earthworks, energy, general engineering, and transportation.
Kennametal’s global manufacturing footprint and diverse customer base create a complex ESG disclosure environment. Customers, investors, suppliers, procurement teams, prospective clients, and other stakeholders regularly request sustainability performance data, product stewardship information, environmental program details, governance practices, health and safety metrics, and supply chain documentation — often throughout the year, not only during annual reporting cycles. These requests arrive in varying formats and require coordinated input from EHS, sustainability, quality, procurement, legal, operations, and communications functions across a globally distributed organization.
As ESG questionnaire volume and disclosure complexity increased, maintaining consistency, traceability, and governance across that distributed request landscape became an enterprise operational challenge — not simply a reporting task.
INDUSTRY CONTEXT
ESG disclosure is no longer a once-a-year exercise — it requires year-round operational governance.
When ESG Disclosure Requests Outpaced the Process Behind Them
Before implementing Responsio, Kennametal managed ESG questionnaires and disclosure requests through email, spreadsheets, and local coordination. Subject matter expertise existed across the organization, but operational knowledge largely remained with individual employees rather than within a governed, reusable enterprise process. As requests became more frequent and detailed, several governance challenges emerged: inconsistent intake across business units, unclear ownership for individual questionnaire sections, limited visibility into active requests and due dates, repeated effort answering recurring questions, and difficulty locating previously approved responses.
“Before Responsio, we were in a place where the disclosure environment was changing faster than our processes could keep up.”
— Rachelle Raible, Sr. Manager, Global EHS & Quality Systems, Kennametal
The issue was not a lack of expertise. Kennametal had experienced people who understood the business and its history. But that created its own risk: if the right person was unavailable, the process slowed. If a similar question had been answered before, teams still had to find the old response, confirm it was current, and rework it for the new request. If multiple teams were involved, ownership was often implied rather than explicit. Critical disclosure knowledge needed to become a governed enterprise asset rather than remaining dependent on individual contributors.
Knowledge wasn’t being captured in a way that was easy to reuse, and we quickly recognized that we had to rethink how we manage disclosures in this new environment.
Rachelle Raible— Sr. Manager, Global EHS & Quality Systems, Kennametal
Redesigning Disclosure Operations Around Governance and Reusable Knowledge
Kennametal worked with the Benchmark Gensuite team to redesign the operational workflow supporting ad hoc disclosure requests. The solution at the center of that work was Responsio — Benchmark Gensuite’s purpose-built application for managing the continuous flow of ESG questionnaires, customer inquiries, investor requests, and third-party disclosure requirements that arrive outside of structured annual reporting cycles. Where traditional reporting tools address framework-based annual disclosures, Responsio is built for the ad hoc reality most EHS and sustainability teams face year-round.
Rather than treating the engagement as a standard software deployment, the Benchmark Gensuite team worked alongside Kennametal to understand root causes, map existing workflows, and configure the solution around the organization’s actual operational constraints. The project emphasized governance improvements alongside technology: standardizing request intake, defining cross-functional ownership, centralizing approved response content, improving workflow visibility, and introducing AI assistance without removing expert oversight from the disclosure process.
Kennametal brought operational pain points directly into the collaboration — and that input shaped not just their own implementation, but the ongoing evolution of the product itself.
“Working closely with Benchmark provided an opportunity to accelerate our maturity and influence the app design. Bring your pain points to the table — that’s how you unlock additional functionality and new use cases you haven’t even considered.”
— Rachelle Raible, Sr. Manager, Global EHS & Quality Systems, Kennametal
AI-Assisted ESG Disclosure Built Around Governed Workflows
Responsio was implemented as a managed disclosure response workflow supported by Genny AI — Benchmark Gensuite’s native AI, purpose-built for EHS and sustainability operations. Genny AI accelerates the repetitive, time-intensive steps in the disclosure process: ingesting and structuring incoming questionnaires, surfacing relevant approved responses from the organizational repository, and preparing draft responses for expert review. Rather than replacing existing review practices, Genny AI reduces the administrative burden at the front and back ends of the workflow, while keeping final validation with subject matter experts at every stage.
Faster Turnaround, Reduced Manual Work, and Stronger Process Control
By implementing Responsio with Genny AI, Kennametal established a more structured approach to managing ESG disclosure requests across multiple functions. During initial deployment, the organization reported several measurable operational improvements.
90% reduction in manual questionnaire intake and distribution effort
Response turnaround reduced from 3 months to 1 month
Working toward a two-week response cycle objective
10 disclosure requests per month managed in initial deployment
Growing repository of approved responses reducing repetitive effort
Clear accountability across initiators, section leads, and approvers
Beyond these operational improvements, Kennametal shifted from a process that depended heavily on institutional knowledge to one built around reusable organizational knowledge and governed workflows. AI supports the preparation of responses, while subject matter experts continue to review, validate, and approve every disclosure before it is shared externally.
How Kennametal Modernized ESG Disclosure Operations
The shift from spreadsheet-based coordination to a governed disclosure workflow represented a fundamental change in how Kennametal manages ESG disclosure requests — not just in speed, but in accountability, consistency, and the organizational value of institutional knowledge.
| BEFORE | AFTER |
|---|---|
| Spreadsheet-driven coordination across email and local teams | Structured disclosure workflow managed from a single platform |
| Email-based assignments with implied ownership | Role-based ownership with explicit accountability at each stage |
| Institutional knowledge held by individual contributors | Reusable enterprise response repository governed by approval workflows |
| Manual questionnaire preparation before response work could begin | AI-assisted intake organizes and structures incoming requests automatically |
| Limited visibility into active requests, due dates, and workload | Centralized workflow monitoring surfaces bottlenecks in real time |
| Repetitive answer development for recurring questions | AI-assisted reuse of approved content reduces redundant drafting effort |
Operational Impact
“Responsio didn’t just give us a better tool, it gave us a better process.”
Rachelle Raible— Sr. Manager, Global EHS & Quality Systems, Kennametal
Governance Alignment and Incremental Adoption Supported Implementation Success
Kennametal’s experience surfaced several practical lessons for organizations modernizing ESG disclosure operations.
ESG Disclosure Is Becoming a Continuous Governance Discipline
Kennametal’s experience reflects a broader operational shift across ESG and sustainability programs globally. Organizations increasingly receive disclosure requests not only during annual reporting cycles but throughout the year — from customers, investors, suppliers, procurement teams, prospective partners, and regulatory bodies. The volume, complexity, and cross-functional nature of these requests has grown to a point where inbox-based coordination and spreadsheet tracking can no longer provide the consistency, traceability, or governance maturity that enterprise disclosure now demands.
The challenge is no longer simply answering ESG questions. It is governing ESG disclosure as an operational discipline — with defined ownership, structured intake, reusable institutional knowledge, and audit-ready documentation across a year-round request environment.
Benchmark Gensuite supports both dimensions of enterprise disclosure management: Responsio for ad hoc stakeholder requests and Disclosure Director for structured annual reporting across frameworks including CDP, GRI, IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, CSRD, BRSR, and TCFD — connecting disclosure workflows to the broader operational data that makes ESG reporting credible.
ORGANIZATION
Founded
1938
Headquarters
Pittsburgh, PA
Employees
8,100+
Industry
Industrial Manufacturing
Solutions Used
Responsio
Genny AI
Disclosure Director
TOPICS
ESG Questionnaire
ESG Disclosure
Questionnaire Management
AI-Assisted Workflows
Disclosure Governance
Stakeholder Reporting
See how Benchmark Gensuite can strengthen your ESG disclosure governance
Talk to an EHS & sustainability expert
Note: Subscriber instances where you have an active registered user account are listed above.
If you need further support, please email us at
getHelp@benchmarkdigital.com
Please include your company name and registered email address so we can assist you.