Accurate sustainability data management is complex, if not impossible, without the right ESG software. You need to collate data, update, analyze and report on it while also keeping everyone in the loop. Before you know it, sustainability reporting will feel like you’re just calculating numbers and trying to keep up with new regulations.
But it doesn’t have to be like that. Creating sustainability programs can be a smooth, transparent and mission-driven process with the right software on the table.
To save you headaches, we’ve put together the ultimate guide to the world of ESG software. We’re explaining what it is, why you need to invest, what vendors top global lists and how they are different.
What is ESG software?
ESG software is a category of tools and platforms that help you collect, track, manage, report and act on your Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data.
This means being able to optimize and improve how you work with all the company data that relates to sustainability, social responsibility and corporate governance to make sure you comply with all the relevant regulatory requirements.
On top of that, it helps you increase transparency within the company and satisfy stakeholder and shareholder expectations on visibility and regulatory compliance.
Why invest in ESG reporting software?
The ESG landscape is shifting quickly, and in more than one direction at once. Some rules are expanding while others are being simplified or withdrawn, which makes it harder, not easier, to know what you owe and to whom.
Here are some of the main reasons why investing in ESG data software today is a good idea:
Reporting on your ESG impact is becoming mandatory, not voluntary
Being a “virtuous” company and supporting sustainable growth is becoming less of a standout and more of an international standard.
ESG Book found in 2023 that global ESG policy interventions had more than doubled since 2011, with over 2,400 instruments tracked across more than 80 jurisdictions. The direction has grown uneven since: Europe narrowed the scope of the CSRD through its Omnibus package, and the SEC has proposed rescinding its climate disclosure rules outright — but the underlying disclosure expectations have not gone away. ISSB-aligned standards had been adopted in 28 jurisdictions as of April 2026, with 12 more planning adoption, and California’s SB 253 and SB 261 continue to pull in companies that do business in the state regardless of where they are headquartered.
The practical effect for a reporting team is that the map keeps being redrawn. That is an argument for infrastructure that can be pointed at whichever framework applies, not for one-off reporting projects.
Manual reporting is not scalable
The bigger the company the more of a hassle ESG reporting is.
If there’s no way you can keep track of all the reporting in real time and within a single spreadsheet, ESG monitoring software is the way to go. Manual reporting is time-consuming and can easily get clunky, it leaves plenty of room for human error and will never scale along with your business.
ESG compliance software removes the risk of inaccuracies
ESG reporting needs to be handed in regularly, ideally every quarter.
On top of that, companies need to follow multiple regulations and frameworks at the same time, such as CSRD, CSDDD and CDP. All of these add more complexity to the very process of reporting, increasing the probability of data gaps and inaccuracies.
Manual data aggregation causes format inconsistencies
Sustainability reporting has become an alphabet soup of overlapping acronyms. A single company may be mapping the same emissions figure to ESRS datapoints for Europe, IFRS S2 for an ISSB-adopting jurisdiction, a CDP questionnaire for its customers and California’s SB 253 for its US operations, each wanting it cut a slightly different way. There is a fair amount of confusion as to what you need to report, how and how you can pull all that data into one cohesive narrative.
ESG software platforms remove that problem by aggregating data from different business units and standardizing your reporting in a lean and efficient manner.
ESG software solutions are known for their cost efficiency
On top of all the accuracy benefits, automating your ESG reporting means you can save on labor and external auditing costs that would otherwise go into emissions data collection and aggregation.
It helps you with risk management and reduction
Being superficial with ESG reporting means your company is vulnerable to developing blind spots, which could result in a lot of risks such as negative environmental impacts, social risks like human rights violations and governance issues such as corruption.
And now that we have established the importance of having reliable ESG management software in your toolkit, let’s look at the providers you should consider first.
The 12 best ESG software to investigate
We’ve shortlisted the top ESG software options that can meet the needs of just about any team, company size and industry out there.
1. Tracera — Best-in-class AI-driven ESG software
Developed within Bain & Company, Tracera (formerly ESG Flo) is the best ESG reporting software and that silver bullet solution that leverages AI to enable companies to generate ESG audit-ready metrics from raw data.
Tracera’s AI automates data collection and processing across all ESG disclosures. It captures previously inaccessible data, drastically reducing manual work, saving time and costs and ensuring audit-ready accuracy.
Feed it any relevant information like invoice documents, HR data, ERP system extracts, supplier data or geo-spatial data and it will automatically generate reports following just about any reporting framework there is.
Tracera can also help you calculate your carbon footprint by analyzing your Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, all with minimum human oversight.
Use cases and AI
- If you need to extract invoice data, the AI will extract data from utility invoices in various formats and languages, using Large Language Models and Optical Character Recognition.
- For qualitative data extraction, the tool will scan documents to surface relevant sections to answer disclosure questions.
- For anomaly detection, the AI will monitor data trends to flag anomalies.
- To help you with smart emission factor matching, the tool will recommend emission factors to calculate Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
- For cross-framework interoperability, the AI auto-populates data across reporting frameworks, eliminating manual entry.
“We’ve automated a very manual process, saving time and resources for other projects. It’s been better tracking, a single source of truth and much higher visibility,” says Samuel Shiroff, Senior Director Global Sustainability at EnerSys.
Relevant: How EnerSys uses GenAI to drive efficiency, ensure accuracy, and safeguard sustainability & ESG data
2. Workiva — Best for streamlined financial and ESG reporting
Workiva unifies finance, risk and sustainability teams on a single platform, with governed data and AI built in. In practice this tool means many different things to many different users, and sustainability is one segment of a much larger product line.
On the sustainability side, Workiva covers CSRD and ESRS, ISSB, GRI, SASB, CDP and the California climate laws, with double materiality assessment, framework mapping and data collection automation as named capabilities. Workiva Carbon, added in 2024 through the company’s acquisition of Sustain.Life, handles Scope 1, 2 and 3 measurement alongside the disclosure work. You can also find this tool handy for financial reporting, regulatory reporting, controls management and statutory reporting.
The breadth is the selling point and the caveat. Buyers coming in for sustainability alone are buying into a platform built for a much wider set of jobs, and reviewers note that Workiva’s AI features have not yet reached every module — the carbon product among them.
3. Greenly — Best for SMBs and startups
Greenly is a sustainability platform that can help you with carbon accounting, life cycle analysis, supplier engagement, CSRD reporting and decarbonization planning. Its compliance coverage now extends to CBAM, EUDR, the EU Taxonomy, VSME and EcoVadis, and it added an AI agent, EcoPilot, in 2025. Carbon offsetting is still available, though as a marketplace that routes you to projects rather than as a core part of the platform.
Among the main standout points, users mention that the tool makes it easy for them to view source data and company emissions, simplifying the process of sharing relevant information with non-technical teams.
Another useful thing is that this tool will help you set reduction goals and monitor your progress over time. You can expect to collaborate on decarbonization strategies across various teams, which could be particularly useful for complex supply chains.
The main thing to plan for is time to value. Reviewers on Capterra, where Greenly holds 4.7 out of 5 across more than 100 reviews, consistently describe the first full reporting cycle as the real onboarding period, with meaningful internal verification needed before the numbers are trustworthy. Pricing is quote-only, and smaller companies report it running high for their budgets.
4. Novisto — Best for mid-market and large companies doing ESG reporting
Novisto positions itself as an enterprise operating system for sustainability management, built to hold ESG data and disclosures to the same standard as financial reporting. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Montreal, it counts Moderna, Sanofi, Deutsche Bank, Bell and Broadridge among its customers.
Novisto can help you with anything from data collection and integration to regulatory compliance and reporting with analytics. The tool uses automation to replace time-consuming processes that go into data gathering and creation, which helps you improve the quality of data and reduce the probability of human error.
The platform has moved well beyond disclosure in the past year. Novisto acquired the carbon accounting platform Minimum in March 2026 and was named a Major Player in the inaugural 2026 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Carbon Accounting and Management Applications that May, which puts it in direct competition with the carbon-first vendors further down this list.
5. Plan A – Companies that want to decarbonize their business
Plan A is a carbon management and sustainability reporting platform that will help you automate and centralize your ESG efforts. It can help you with anything from data collection to carbon footprint measurement and standard ESG reporting.
The platform maps to CSRD and ESRS, CSDDD, the EU Taxonomy, CBAM, UK SDR, SBTi and the GHG Protocol. Its methodology is GHG Protocol compliant and TÜV Rheinland certified, and the platform itself carries SOC 2 — worth distinguishing from assurance over your report, which has to come from an independent accredited provider, never from your software vendor.
Just like Greenly, it can help you set and achieve reduction targets and explore various decarbonization pathways.
One structural change to factor in: Plan A was acquired by Nasdaq-listed Diginex in January 2026 and now sits inside a larger ESG and carbon accounting group, with offices in Paris, London and Berlin.
6. Coolset — Best for mid-market teams facing EU supply chain rules
Coolset is an ESG and supply chain platform built for compliance-first teams, aimed at mid-market companies managing emissions alongside procurement and compliance. The tool automates decarbonization and helps you get rid of those outdated Excel practices.
Where Coolset separates itself is regulatory breadth on the supply chain side. Alongside CSRD and VSME, it covers EUDR, CBAM, PPWR, the EU Timber Regulation, the EU Taxonomy and EcoVadis, which matters if your compliance burden arrives through what you buy rather than what you emit. Coolset also helps you make sustainability auditing a lot easier, and if you discover that a vendor in your network is causing your sustainability numbers to go wrong, this tool helps you find options to switch to more relevant vendors.
Reviewers on G2, where Coolset holds 4.7 out of 5, are positive overall, with the most common criticism being that default emission factors for Scope 1, 2 and 3 can run high and generic before you refine them with your own data.
7. Sweep — Best for carbon accounting and ESG data management
Sweep is a sustainability data management platform that helps you collect, manage and act on your ESG data. Targeting companies of different sizes and across different industries, this tool makes their sustainability journey easier and more organized.
This platform can help you achieve different sustainability goals, such as getting audit-ready, meeting disclosure requirements, understanding your value chain performance, setting data-driven sustainability strategies and tracking your carbon and ESG data. French-founded with offices in Paris and London, it has since added a UK SRS module for companies facing mandatory UK sustainability reporting.
Sweep was named a Leader in the 2026 IDC MarketScape for Carbon Accounting and Management Applications, scoring highest among the 17 global vendors assessed. In a nutshell, its functionality is highly comparable to those of Normative, Persefoni, Watershed and a string of others.
8. Persefoni — Best for carbon accounting and climate management data
Persefoni is a climate management and carbon accounting platform that also makes ESG reporting easier. It helps your business measure its carbon footprint, develop decarbonization strategies and report against California’s SB 253 and SB 261, CSRD, PCAF, SASB and Science Based Targets. It also supports TCFD-aligned reporting, which remains in demand even though the task force itself disbanded in 2023 and its recommendations now sit inside IFRS S2.
Many users point out that it takes you some time to get started with the tool and set up all templates, but the team tends to be very supportive with that.
However, because this platform primarily focuses on carbon footprint management, compared to other ESG reporting software on the market this one is somewhat limited.
“I can’t create a complete sustainability report in Persefoni, would be nice to extend GHG with further dates, photos, diagrams and text in Persefoni, so the requirements to a complete sustainability report could be generated,” points out a user on G2 in a five-star review from August 2023.
9. Workday — Best for tracking social impact
Unlike many other ESG software companies, Workday is primarily about human capital management and reporting on the “S” part of ESG data, the social impact. This tool helps you manage payroll, benefits, HR and employee data. If you need to do extensive social reporting, analyze supplier risk and develop streamlined workforce reporting, this might be your stop.
One thing to understand before you shortlist it: Workday does not sell a standalone ESG product. ESG reporting is delivered as a use case for Prism Analytics, with Supplier Risk and Sustainability covering Scope 3 exposure and Adaptive Planning handling emissions-reduction modeling. If you are already a Workday shop, that is efficient. If you are not, you would be buying a very large system to solve a reporting problem.
Happy users point out that the platform helps you keep all records in one space, which you can access whenever and wherever you need, and that the system is well-organized and highly collaborative. Cost is the most consistent complaint, both for the software itself and for training.
10. Watershed — Best for enterprise sustainability programs
Watershed is a sustainability AI platform used by large enterprises to measure, report and act on their climate impact. With the information gathered, you can provide relevant disclosures and remain compliant with the latest regulations.
The software will work for companies across different industries, like consumer goods, apparel, retail and technology. On the ESG reporting side specifically, the tool will help you understand all framework and regulation requirements and pull all your data together for numbers to speak words. Watershed added AI-powered reporting capabilities in March 2026, aimed at cutting the time reporting teams spend assembling disclosures.
11. Position Green — Best for all-in ESG reporting
Position Green is a platform that can tend to all of your ESG needs. It consolidates ESG data, carbon management, supply chain transparency and capital markets reporting in one place, and helps you tap into your supply chain to see how it is contributing to your sustainability numbers.
The company has been consolidating the European market around itself, acquiring the carbon management provider Morescope in August 2025 and the CSRD and EU Taxonomy compliance specialist Greenomy the following month. If you are evaluating them, evaluate the combined product rather than what any one of those companies offered separately.
Many users mention the ease of use that comes with this platform and say you can start reporting without any prior education. The reporting functionality is broken into bite-sized segments which can make it easy for every user to track progress and see where your reporting is standing.
The most common criticism is manual effort at the edges. As Kristian S., a Sustainability Manager in the plastics industry, put it in a five-star Capterra review, “I miss visualizations of relevant data that is included in other software.”
Related: Top 7 Position Green alternatives + user reviews
12. Optro (formerly AuditBoard) — Best for ESG compliance and risk management
Last but not least, Optro is a governance, risk and compliance platform with an ESG module that helps you audit your data, surface risks and develop various ESG programs. Along with ESG reporting, it also has several features that will help you automate compliance, analyze IT risk and manage vendor risk.
AuditBoard rebranded as Optro in March 2026 as it repositioned around agentic AI for GRC, so you will still find it under the old name in a lot of comparison content. Its ESG module names CSRD and SASB specifically, and sits alongside nine other products covering controls management, AI governance, internal audit, business continuity and third-party risk.
That breadth is the reason to consider it and the reason to be careful. Users say the tool is highly customizable and easy to use, plus it integrates well with other systems, which is useful when you need to consolidate all data. But ESG is one module in a GRC suite rather than the center of the product, and out-of-the-box dashboards typically need configuration before they earn their keep.
What’s next?
If you have already built a business case for investing in ESG software, there are a few things to do before you settle for the best match:
- Make a list of the top ESG software solutions available on the market, provided above.
- Clearly define your use cases and the pain points you want solved with the help of automation.
- List out your must-haves and dealbreakers, such as cost limitations, lack of certain functionality, certifications or the time it takes to get started with the tool.
- Based on your software requirements, shortlist your favorites, request demos and quotes and run a trial with a few of them to see which one clicks.
Tracera is the best pick to try first. It is an all-in-one solution for measuring and managing ESG data as well as calculating and acting on your carbon footprint. To see the platform for yourself, book a demo today.