How Decarbonisation Platforms can Streamline Sustainability

Decarbonisation can come with a lot of data, particularly in big businesses. Pulling data from the right sources and storing it in the right places can be difficult with supply chains including hundreds, or even thousands, of companies. A report from BCG says that more than 90% of companies are not measuring their emissions regularly and accurately.

Decarbonisation platforms are built to help with this task, keeping a handle on the data so sustainability and environmental professionals can put it to work. Digital tools, analytics and strategic insights can make it easier to measure, monitor and reduce emissions across all operational scopes. 

“Today, reporting alone isn’t enough,” says Prashanthi Sudhakar, Head of Product for Net Zero Cloud at Salesforce. “Sustainability leaders must deliver transparent, audit-ready results and demonstrate measurable business value.

“With 85% of investors wary of greenwashing, trust hinges on accurate data. Leaders can build confidence, attract investment and drive business resilience by proving the integrity and impact of their initiatives and data.”

How decarbonisation platforms work

Transforming how a business operates, designs products and interacts with suppliers to achieve emissions reductions starts with measuring.

If it is not clear how much there is to reduce or where it is coming from, sustainability leaders are effectively fumbling around in the dark. 

Decarbonisation platforms can handle a lot of the difficult work in this process, including: 

• Comprehensive emissions tracking
• Emissions hotspot identification
• Reduction pathway modelling
• Initiative management
• Supplier and value chain engagement
• Real-time monitoring and reporting
• Regulatory compliance
• Lifecycle assessment.

While many decarbonisation platforms can handle multiple parts of the process, some focus on specific areas. 

Different platforms for different industries

Some decarbonisation platforms are tailored to work best for specific industries, such as manufacturing, services, technology, real estate and finance. The needs of, for example, a business in financial services, are significantly different to a business in heavy industry.

Carbon accounting platforms look to track, calculate and report greenhouse gas emissions. Often they have automated data collection, cover all scopes of emissions and contain emissions factor libraries.

These platforms can help to provide audit-ready reporting and support regulatory compliance, suitable for organisations prioritising rigorous, traceable emissions reporting and disclosures. 

Some platforms help businesses to collaborate with others, including those in their supply chains. By delegating tasks, collecting data from suppliers and tracking collaborative projects, these platforms can help businesses to tackle Scope 3 emissions.

For many organisations, these emissions can make up a significant portion of a carbon footprint – in some cases more than 99%. 

What are the top decarbonisation platforms?

1. Sweep

Rachel Delacour, Sweep’s Co-Founder and CEO, says: “Every company is poised to disrupt the climate crisis and build a sustainable future. Sweep provides the tools needed to tackle the complexities of sustainability data management, to accelerate climate action”.

2. Watershed

Watershed describes its data as the “highest quality”, suitable for audits with methodologies developed by in-house climate experts and vetted by third-party auditors.

3. Salesforce Net Zero Cloud

Prashanthi says: “Unlike traditional solutions, Agentforce for Net Zero Cloud streamlines sustainability reporting, cuts operational costs and boosts efficiency with pre-built agent topics and actions.”

4. Sphera

Sphera describes itself as “the only company providing a 360-degree view of sustainability and performance management at the enterprise, operations, product and supply chain levels”.

5. Persefoni

Persefoni specialises in decarbonisation management and carbon reporting, including Scope 3 emissions from suppliers.

6. Greenly 

Greenly’s carbon accounting can be personalised to a company’s maturity and industry and provides real-time analysis and trajectory reports.

7. Workiva

“Reporting teams are now responsible for providing information that significantly impacts business outcomes,” says Julie Iskow, President and CEO at Workiva.

8. Diligent

“In today’s dynamic business landscape, enterprise risk management isn’t just strategy – it’s a lifeline,” says Brian Stafford, President and CEO at Diligent. 

9. Plan A

Plan A describes itself as one platform to “master your entire net zero journey” covering carbon accounting, carbon reporting and decarbonisation itself. 

10. Novata

Novata provides tools and support to collect accurate ESG data with confidence alongside benchmarks, visualisations and reporting tools.

Challenges that decarbonisation platforms can tackle

Regulatory requirements around carbon disclosure and reduction, like the European Commission’s CSRD, are growing. Non-compliance with these regulations can bring a range of serious consequences, including financial penalties and reputational damage.

Decarbonisation platforms can help to ensure precise, transparent data collection and reporting that can simplify compliance. 

Energy inefficiencies and emissions ‘hotspots’ can signal wasted resources. By highlighting these areas, decarbonisation platforms can help companies to address these issues and lower costs through smarter energy use and operational optimisation. 

Decarbonisation offers a number of advantages that affect businesses outside of the sustainability function.

Integrating decarbonisation can not only help to meet environmental targets, but also strengthen brand reputation.

Customers looking for environmentally-conscious solutions can be attracted by these efforts and new, sustainable revenue streams can be unlocked such as through circular economy models or carbon trading.

Sweep

Sweep, founded in 2020, is a decarbonisation platform helping businesses to manage risk, drive growth and stay compliant. It works with some of the biggest in business, including BlackRock, L'Oréal and Orange Group. Orange Group’s CEO, Christel Heydemann, described Sweep as “simply the best”.

Sweep delivers transparent, granular and actionable data-driven insights. Its platform aims to empower decision-makers to identify regulatory and climate risks, design robust ESG transition plans and build long-term business resilience. Clients use Sweep to embed sustainability at the core of their operations and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving regulatory and economic landscape.

Sweep is B-Corp certified and an active member of the World Bank’s Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, France Invest and the International Emissions Trading Association.

Rachel Delacour, Sweep’s Co-Founder and CEO, says: “Every company is poised to disrupt the climate crisis and build a sustainable future. Those that take every possible action today will become the forever companies of tomorrow. Sweep provides the tools needed to tackle the complexities of sustainability data management, to accelerate climate action”.

Watershed

Watershed is a comprehensive enterprise decarbonisation platform used by companies across industries. It provides tools for businesses to measure, report and act on decarbonisation. It describes its data as the “highest quality”, suitable for audits with methodologies developed by in-house climate experts and vetted by third-party auditors.

Watershed’s measurement methodology is based on science-based targets to enable measurements with materials-specific emissions factors and customers have access to a marketplace of pre-vetted carbon projects and virtual power purchase agreements.

General Motors, FedEx, Visa and DP World are among the businesses using Watershed to support decarbonising their business. “Watershed came in as the best partner to help us attain our sustainability goals while allowing us to be flexible and cost-efficient,” said Nicholas Mazzei, VP Sustainability Europe at DP World.

In 2024, nearly 25,000 companies disclosed environmental data through CDP and the platform chose Watershed to support its own emissions reporting. "We are honoured that CDP will be using Watershed to report to CDP—and execute on their leading-by-example sustainability programme," said Taylor Francis, Co-Founder of Watershed. 

Salesforce Net Zero Cloud

Salesforce’s Net Zero Cloud is a decarbonisation platform designed to help organisations track, manage and reduce their carbon emissions as part of a broader ESG strategy. 

Net Zero Cloud is unified with Data Cloud and Agentforce, connecting high-volume, granular sustainability data across finance, procurement and operations without moving or reformatting it. This can help to bring faster insights, fewer errors and create a single source of truth for enterprise-wide decision making.

Prashanthi says: “We recently launched Agentforce for Net Zero Cloud - a powerful new capability that transforms how sustainability teams work. Unlike traditional solutions, Agentforce for Net Zero Cloud streamlines sustainability reporting, cuts operational costs and boosts efficiency with pre-built agent topics and actions. By augmenting teams with digital labour, AI agents work alongside humans to complete time-intensive tasks faster and more efficiently than humans alone.

“Because sustainability is a core value at Salesforce, Agentforce is built with efficiency in mind. Our compact, purpose-built AI models are significantly lighter than frontier LLMs, eliminating the need for costly fine-tuning and minimising environmental impact.”