The best 5 carbon accounting software of 2023
More than 4,500 companies are actively transitioning toward carbon neutrality under the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). And with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), as many as 50,000 corporate companies will need to disclose their impact on activites related to people and the planet. These companies have committed to clearly-defined scientific pathways to reduce their carbon footprint. Now is the time to join this movement and start tracking your company’s carbon emissions.
Carbon accounting software can help you actively track, report, and make informed decisions regarding your company’s sustainability journey.
As the sustainability manager, you need the best carbon footprint software available to support your goals and advance your climate program.
In this article, we’ve done the hard work for you and compiled five carbon accounting software options to integrate into your workflow.
What is carbon accounting software?
Carbon accounting software is designed to support companies in managing and analyzing their carbon emissions. The right software will fulfill three major needs: data collection, data analysis, and sustainability reporting. When companies track their emissions data accurately, they can make informed decisions on how to regulate and reduce their output of carbon emissions.
A great carbon accounting tool isn’t only about data collection and analysis. The right one will also help incorporate strategic climate planning and decision-making, allowing youto include the crucial climate perspective in your business planning. For many countries, local regulatory compliance is also mandatory.
Carbon accounting software is science-based, meaning it will be based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP), accounting for multiple types of carbon emissions.
There are more benefits to managing your greenhouse gas emissions through carbon accounting software than only data collection and analysis. Incorporating software into your business reporting enhances performance on multiple levels, including:
- Improving brand reputation
- Compliance with regulatory requirements
- Mitigation of business risks related to climate change
- Transparent communication with internal and external stakeholders
- Meeting consumer demand for sustainable products and services
Ultimately, the software will provide greater transparency for your ESG motives and better communication between internal and external stakeholders.
What features to look for in carbon accounting software?
Carbon accounting software will help you achieve strategic and clear outcomes for your corporate sustainability planning. As the industry becomes more competitive, you'll need to research diligently.
- Compliance certification — Be mindful of your local compliance requirements and regional guidelines. Choose a company that is dedicated to ongoing research, software development, and is active in promoting this benefit on their website. Try to choose software with a solid track record.
- Reporting and analytics — Data collection and analysis are at the center of an industry-leading carbon accounting software. Look for a tool that provides emissions data, benchmark reporting, and energy consumption rates. This is crucial to establishing credible reporting frameworks that companies can work towards in the long term.
- Streamlined integration — It’s important that the carbon management and sustainability reporting process has synergy. If the vendor doesn’t have a strong auditing methodology (and the methodology changes often), the data management and reporting can be skewed over time.
- Experience and partnerships — Make sure the software design meets the highest standards and the developer is dedicated to improving it. A strong indicator of this commitment is association with leading industry partnerships. When exploring options, review the expertise of the development team and look for industry expertise, relevant know-how, and a long-term perspective on climate mitigation.
- Personalized support — Having the right tool is seldom the only requirement for meeting your climate targets. A leading carbon accounting software will provide personalized advice and specific customer support depending on your region, country, and personal needs.
All in all, choosing the best carbon accounting software is no easy task. Here’s a list of the 5 best options on the market to help you choose:
The 5 best carbon accounting software of 2023
1. TravelPerk’s GreenPerk API
TravelPerk provides the safest, most flexible, and cost-efficient platform to manage business travel in one place, backed up by the best-rated customer support team on the planet. As a product add-on, GreenPerk API allows companies to offset their carbon emissions on all their business travel.
Travel emissions are amongst some of the highest reduction targets for companies. A tool like GreenPerk API allows companies to tackle Scope 3 emissions head-on by analyzing, reducing, and making green decisions that help curtail one of the most difficult reduction categories
"On our journey to Net Zero, precise, granular emissions data is really helpful to Aesop —because before we can act, we need to know what to focus on. Working with Travelperk has enabled us to understand our travel emision hotspots much better and map out the changes we can make that will have the biggest impact."
Rebecca Lawson, Aesop Sustainability Manager, Climate
GreenPerk API was created for companies that value sustainability. TravelPerk makes it easy to manage business travel all in one place, but coupled with the GreenPerk add-on, companies can better implement sustainable travel policies. Easily create a net-zero strategy and make sustainable travel decisions all in one platform.
GreenPerk API’s key features include:
- Offset the carbon emissions of all your business travel
- Get real-time, actionable insights on your company’s carbon impact
- Motivate your employees to change their travel behaviors
GreenPerk API already has a series of ongoing collaborations with the sustainability sector. Through collaborations with partners like CDP and World Resources Institute, GreenPerk is well connected to the industry and up-to-date with all developing regulations and standards.
Furthermore, access to TravelPerk’s 24/7 customer care is available to GreenPerk customers, meaning you always have a specialist who can help with specific requests for greener travel. For companies that can specifically target their Scope 3 travel emissions, the GreenPerk API is the top platform to do so. The open API documentation is easy to read and use for engineers.
G2 rating: 4.6/5
Capterra rating: 4.8/5
(Info review on February 1, 2023).
2. Quentic: GRI Standards
Quentic Sustainability enables companies to evaluate the social, ecological, and economic aspects of their company. As carbon accounting software, the module helps companies at all levels of the data collection and reporting process. It identifies important sustainability indicators and easily integrates them into your sustainability planning. Quentic Sustainability incorporates the important pieces to remain compliant with common ESG reporting standards.
A large part of Quentic Sustainability’s offering is focused on gathering data quality in all areas of company operations. Data is standardized and consistent through a validated collection and approval process. Quentin Sustainability is a certified Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Software and Tools Partner and is qualified to deliver specific GRI indicators in the platform.
Quentic Sustainability’s key features include:
- Detailed definitions and embedding of important sustainability indicators for reporting
- Easy-to-use, centralized data collection between teams
- Transparent internal stakeholder management for planning and data collection
G2 rating: No ranking
Capterra rating: 4.8/5
(Info review on February 1, 2023).
3. Cority: Sustainability and ESG
As a sustainability and ESG performance software, Cority supports organizations in ensuring their data is accurate and suitable with a robust sustainability and ESG solution. The sustainability solution is an all-inclusive platform, encompassing the tracking of sustainability objectives and targets to the collecting of data across the entire organization.
As a highly collaborative solution, Cority breaks down team silos and supports colleagues in working collaboratively toward sustainability. The centralized management of the platform enables teams to easily create, collect, and report on qualitative and quantitative metrics for sustainability reporting.
The data for sustainability and CSR reports include the CDP, GRI, TCFD, and the UN Global Compact frameworks.
Cority’s key features include:
- A solution that can easily scale for small to medium-sized businesses and large enterprises
- Real-time tracking and reporting of your sustainability performance
- Simple to aggregate information and data from multiple sources, creating a comprehensive data set for reporting
G2 rating: 3.9/5
Capterra rating: 4.3/5
(Info review on February 1, 2023).
4. Persefoni
Persefoni is a SaaS platform enabling companies and financial institutions to easily meet their stakeholder and regulatory climate disclosure requirements. It’s made for companies that need financial reporting as well as robust accounting automation.
As an easy-to-navigate platform, Persefoni is built for users with no prior knowledge or expertise in carbon accounting. Persefoni compiles the leading global Emission Factor sets from IPCC, IEA, EPA, and DEFRA so there’s no need to maintain multiple data sources. Easily calculate your company’s carbon footprint and assemble a complete greenhouse gas inventory across Scope 1, 2, and 3 that is fully compliant with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
Persefoni breathes sustainable transparency and also partner with organizations leading climate sustainability.
Persefoni’s key features include:
- Simple onboarding for first-time carbon trackers easily creates the foundation for your carbon footprint calculator
- Transparent data ownership by assigning internal stakeholders and due dates to manage data collection
- A comprehensive breakdown of emission sources like supply chain, people activities, and finances emissions to provide a granular view of your carbon footprint
G2 rating: 5.0/5 *only one review
Capterra rating: no reviews
(Info review on February 1, 2023).
5ProcessMAP
ProcessMAP makes it easy to track, analyze, verify, and report on enterprise-wide sustainability data. As a platform to manage sustainability-related performance and metrics, the platform streamlines data collection, analysis, and verification in all areas like environmental, social, safety, energy, and carbon tracking.
The corporate and site-specific project management and robust KPI library for corporate sustainability and disclosure reports make ProcessMAP a carbon accounting software leader.
ProcessMAP’s key features include:
- Easily link your emissions data with financial data to identify costs and benefits
- Review an extensive KPI library to prepare GRI and CDP sustainability reports
- Transparent corporate and topic-specific project management across the organization
G2 rating: 4.0/5
Capterra rating: 4.4/5
(Info review on February 1, 2023).
Start the sustainability journey
A carbon accounting software will support you in making informed decisions about your company’s sustainability journey. As climate regulation evolves and reduction targets become mandatory, carbon emissions management software will be a pivotal part of forward-focused companies.
When it comes to business travel, TravelPerk with the GreenPerk API supports all your carbon accounting needs and reduction goals, specifically targeting analysis and reduction of Scope 3 travel emissions.
Request a live personalized demo of GreenPerk to get started
