If you’re using Novisto to track your carbon emissions and do ESG reporting, it might be a good time to consider alternatives. While many users agree that it helps them move away from manual processes, the reviews that stop short of five stars keep returning to the same few things: setup, navigation and gaps in the feature set.
And when you’re choosing the best tool to remain compliant in the increasingly stressful ESG regulations space, finding the best fit is crucial.
We’re here for you with research around the best Novisto alternatives and user reviews showing what people like and dislike about them.
Why consider a Novisto alternative?
Novisto is sustainability management software that gives you insights into your sustainability data, helps with ESG reporting and relevant workflows.
Happy users often mention customer support as one of the standouts they enjoy, and when it comes to frustrations, the product is usually the one to take a hit.
Here are some of the main reasons people go looking for tools like Novisto:
- Data import friction. One enterprise director described “difficulty importing some data fields” and a Power BI integration that “was a bit finicky” before his team resolved it. (Paul F., G2, August 2024)
- Complex setup. If you’re looking for an intuitive tool, Novisto might be frustrating because of some loose ends in the functionality setup: “Exporting data for example has been a bit clunky of a process and less tech-savvy users sometimes find submitting data not totally intuitive.” (Atian, financial services, Capterra, July 2023)
- Difficult navigation. ESG reporting is complex as it is so users feel unhappy when their software adds to the problem instead of removing it: “Navigating through certain sections may not be as intuitive as desired, potentially impacting the user experience.” (Verified user in pharmaceuticals, G2, November 2023)
- Product gaps. There are still some key features that you might find are missing in this tool as users mention that “the platform is still maturing and may not have absolutely every type of functionality a client might want.” (Atian, financial services, Capterra, July 2023)
Best Novisto alternatives and their unique points + user reviews (G2 & Capterra)
There are lots of Novisto competitors you could investigate. They are generally all good but there are certainly differences in price, onboarding experiences to expect, product maturity, and other factors that might be essential in your ESG journey.
But wherever you’re coming from, here are the best Novisto alternatives to start your search.
1. Tracera — Best Novisto alternative and a leader in auditable carbon tracking and ESG reporting
Tracera is a sustainability data platform built for seamless ESG reporting and auditable carbon tracking. It helps you keep up with all the updates in reporting regulations and stay compliant without any hassles.
With its data collection suite, the tool collects your Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, does emission calculations, extracts qualitative data, provides pre-built surveys, and gives you access to a comprehensive Supplier Portal.
With its compliance suite, this software provides actionable reporting frameworks templates, auto-fills your disclosure questions, ensures cross-framework data sharing, and provides a collaborative system for messaging and task management.
On top of that, there are add-on services you can count on like gap assessment, double materiality assessment, decarbonization strategy building, lifecycle assessment, etc.
In fact, Tracera builds this system of records around your business where you can upload your data once and generate just about any report you need to ensure compliance.
Where the two diverge most is in what happens before the report. Tracera extracts data from unstructured source documents, flags anomalies in it, pulls EPDs and collects supplier data through a dedicated portal. That is the work that otherwise falls to a consultant or a spreadsheet owner.
“Tracera’s mass-based approach and Scope 3 proprietary model for emission calculations is a game-changer. It is much more accurate than our internal solution and is making our total emission calculations substantially more precise.” — Amy Vernon, Director of Global Product Compliance and Sustainability at La-Z-Boy
2. Workiva — Novisto competitor that brings financials into the game
Workiva is an all-in-one platform that helps you with ESG, audit, financial management, and reporting. It brings departments together and unifies information within one system. If you need to comply with regulations like CSRD, the tool will make that experience much smoother for you.
As such, Workiva stands for a portfolio of tools, which is one of its strongest points but also a major weakness as it makes this software very costly.
For long-time users, Workiva is all about simplified reporting and efficiency:
“Workiva is user friendly and has simple yet elegant solutions. It simplifies our reporting process and creates efficiencies.”
However, many people also point out that the system is slow, overloaded, and can get glitchy which will slow down your processes at the worst moments:
“Workiva tends to be pretty glitchy, especially during the times when it’s being heavily used by other clients, which is when we need it to perform the most (i.e. during quarter end busy seasons).”
💡Related: 5 best Workiva alternatives to try for all things ESG management
3. Diligent ESG — Novisto alternative with governance built in
Diligent ESG is the sustainability product inside Diligent One, the same platform that carries the company’s audit, risk and compliance tools. That is the argument for it. If your board already sits in Diligent, your emissions data and the slides your directors read come out of one system instead of being reconciled by hand every quarter.
The carbon side is deeper than the governance parentage suggests. It covers Scope 1, 2 and 3 alongside biogenic and out-of-scope emissions, carries a library of more than 70,000 emission factors that is refreshed annually, recognizes over 2,000 fuels and business activities, and ships around 80 pre-built reports designed to survive assurance. Calculations carry change logs, so an auditor can trace a figure back to the row it came from.
Watch what it leads with, though. Diligent markets certification by CDP, GRESB, GRI, SASB and DJSI, and says considerably less about CSRD, ESRS or the ISSB standards. If your calendar is set by European regulation rather than voluntary disclosure, press hard on that coverage before you sign anything.
Diligent ESG has a thin review base, a dozen on Capterra and most of them from its Accuvio days, but the pattern in them is consistent. Users who like it point at the reporting:
“Very easy to use, does everything we need and more for our CDP reporting” (Sean C., VP group safety, health and environment, Capterra, March 2019)
The recurring complaint is the on-ramp:
“The software is a bit technical and challenging to get started with” (Sadaf G., sustainability analyst, Capterra, May 2019)
4. Plan A — Novisto alternative to double down on carbon management
Plan A might be particularly interesting for companies that seek to decarbonize their processes. As such, this tool is a carbon tracker and ESG reporting software that will help you pull your ESG data together and automate reporting.
It follows the widely known roadmap most ESG platforms give you: you get support in collecting your ESG data, measuring your carbon footprint, and standardizing overall ESG reporting efforts.
Its reporting coverage is built around the EU regulatory stack: CSRD and ESRS, CSDDD, the EU Taxonomy and CBAM, with UK SDR alongside them. European reporters will find more of what they need here than U.S.-first teams will.
5. Workday — Novisto alternative to focus on the social impact
Workday, just like Workiva, is an all-in-one platform that has a specific focus on your human resources and the “S,” or Social, in the ESG corner.
It helps you with human capital management and reporting so things like HR, benefits, payroll, and employee data become much easier to work with.
For many users, Workday is a great solution for remaining agile and competitive:
“It allows organizations to easily adjust their plans and forecasts in real-time to adapt to changing business conditions, which is crucial for staying agile and competitive.”
At the same time, frustrated users share their challenges in the daily use of the platform:
“Workday is clunky, terrible UI/UX, impossible to find the simplest things, nothing is intuitive.”
💡More tool alternatives: The 12 best ESG software platforms + why you need to invest
Once you single out the tools that make the best match with your use cases and check off all the boxes in your list of must-haves, get a deep dive with each one of them where you request a quote, see a demo, and maybe even get to try the tool before signing on the dotted line.
Book a demo and we will walk you through your own reporting calendar, not a generic tour.