Sustainability & AI
Knowledge graph
A structured network of entities and relationships used to organise data, underpinning traceability and ESG data systems.
Definition
A structured representation of entities and the relationships between them, stored as a connected network that machines can query and reason over.
Quick reference
At a glance
- Subject
- Sustainability & AI
- Editorial status
- Editorial draft
- Definition status
- Established
- Last updated
- 21 August 2026
References
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Overview
What it means
Knowledge graphs organise facts as subject–relation–object triples, integrating heterogeneous data into a navigable structure; Hogan et al.' s 2021 survey is the standard technical reference. They complement, rather than replace, statistical AI — increasingly as grounding sources for language models.
How it is used
Uses include supply-chain mapping, regulatory knowledge bases, ESG data integration and scientific discovery platforms — anywhere fragmented sustainability data must be joined into a coherent whole.
Why it matters
Most sustainability data problems are joining problems: emissions factors here, facilities there, suppliers somewhere else. Knowledge graphs provide the connective tissue that makes such data traversable, queryable and auditable.
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