September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › Finance › Equity and corporate › ESG and carbon reporting · September 2026 Edition

ESG and carbon reporting

Asked as “ESG reporting software”, and as “carbon accounting platform”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 52 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
25%
Contested · Greenly 13%
25Sweep13Greenly10Novisto52others

25% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Sweep25%3%37accepted challenger
02Greenly13%8%26accepted challenger
03Novisto10%7%27accepted challenger
04Plan A10%7%14accepted challenger
05Coolset8%0%19accepted challenger
06EcoOnline ESG8%0%12accepted challenger
07Persefoni6%4%28accepted challenger
08Workiva ESG4%29%35criticized challenger
Show the seven products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
15Salesforce Net Zero Cloud0%55%11criticized challenger
14IBM Envizi0%36%25criticized challenger
09Watershed0%17%18accepted challenger
11SAP Sustainability Control Tower0%17%12accepted challenger
12Normative0%10%10accepted challenger
13Pulsora0%10%10accepted challenger
10Diligent ESG0%9%11accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
W08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01Sweep25%
02Greenly13%
03Novisto10%
04Plan A10%
05Coolset8%
06EcoOnline ESG8%
07Persefoni6%
08Workiva ESG4%
09Watershed0%
10Diligent ESG0%
11SAP Sustainability Control Tower0%
12Normative0%
13Pulsora0%
14IBM Envizi0%
15Salesforce Net Zero Cloud0%

What they warned about

One of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
IBM Envizi
36%
9 of 25 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Some consultants and industry observers recommend steering clear of ESG solutions from major tech firms” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Workiva ESG
29%
10 of 35 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“| Workiva | $50K–$150K+ (likely overkill) | Skip unless you need integrated financial + ESG reporting |” DeepSeek V4 Flash, scale prompt
Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
55%
6 of 11 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“recommend steering clear of ESG solutions from major tech firms, as these may not be as specialized or effective” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Watershed
17%
3 of 18 labels negative · 3 of 12 models
“Some enterprise platforms like Watershed assume dedicated sustainability staff and full custom pricing with no standard SMB tier or transparent pricing.” Claude Haiku 4.5, paraphrase prompt

What they cite

Twelve of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited and eight the search results they consulted.

Sites the answers cite

68 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 953 links across 246 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · Guideflow39 answers · 41 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Coolset37 answers · 44 citations · 11 models
31 answers · 35 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Emission Twin25 answers · 25 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Pulsora23 answers · 24 citations · 11 models
vendor site · G220 answers · 36 citations · 9 models
16 answers · 17 citations · 8 models
15 answers · 16 citations · 8 models
15 answers · 15 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Horizon ESG12 answers · 16 citations · 5 models
12 answers · 13 citations · 8 models
vendor site · KEY ESG12 answers · 12 citations · 11 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best esg reporting software”, “esg reporting platforms”, “esg reporting software”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Sweep sweep.net25%6833,10041,1217,2255
Greenly greenly.earth13%892,90028130,54626
Novisto novisto.com10%4332048623
Plan A plana.earth10%274,400685,72631,908
Coolset coolset.com8%2972004,690
EcoOnline ecoonline.com
EcoOnline ESG 8%
8%3
Workiva workiva.com
Workiva ESG 4%, Sustain.Life 4%
8%13022,20052458,186$23641
Persefoni persefoni.com6%811,300238,274$3267
ExecutESG executesg.com6%41004
ESG:ONE esg-one.co2%6014

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 20 sites; 2 of them are among the sites the models cited here (gartner.com, keyesg.com). The first result for “best esg reporting software” is workiva.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
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ModelDirect“What is the best ESG reporting software for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which carbon accounting platform would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top ESG reporting platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best ESG reporting software for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a ESG reporting software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which ESG reporting platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5EcoOnline ESG
Four alternativesGreenstone, Normative, SpheraCloud Corporate Sustainability, Sweep
GreenlyChanged
Three alternativesEmitwise, Plan A, Sumday
against: Watershed
no first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniWorkiva ESG
Three alternativesIBM Envizi, Novisto, SpheraCloud Corporate Sustainability
GreenlyChanged
Two alternativesWatershed, Workiva ESG
no first choiceEcoOnline ESG
One alternativeFutureproof
against: Diligent ESG
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashGreenly, Sweep
Two alternativesCoolset, Novata
against: SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, Workiva ESG
GreenlyChanged
Four alternativesSeedling, Sweep, Watershed, Workiva Carbon
Workiva ESG
Five alternativesDiligent ESG, Persefoni, Sweep, Watershed, Wolters Kluwer
ExecutESG
Four alternativesESG Lift, GRI–ESG KPI Tracker, Greenly, Persefoni
against: IBM Envizi, Pulsora, Workiva ESG
Coolset, ESG:ONE, Plan A, Sweep
Two alternativesExecutESG, Greenly
against: IBM Envizi, Persefoni, Workiva ESG
against: G17 Eco, IBM Envizi, Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, Workiva ESG
Perplexity SonarNovisto
Four alternativesEcoOnline ESG, Greenly, Novata, Sweep
Plan AChanged
Two alternativesCoolset, Sweep
Workiva ESG
Six alternativesDiligent ESG, IBM Envizi, Novisto, Persefoni, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Watershed
Persefoni
Three alternativesAclymate, Greenly, Sweep
against: Workiva ESG
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.20Sweep
Two alternativesCoolset, Novisto
Greenly, SweepChanged
Three alternativesCarbonTool, Coolset, Plan A
Workiva ESG
Six alternativesIBM Envizi, Novisto, Persefoni, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, SpheraCloud Corporate Sustainability, Watershed
ExecutESG
Two alternativesAclymate, Horizon ESG
Coolset
Three alternativesESG:ONE, Persefoni, Workiva ESG
against: IBM Envizi, Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, Plan A, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, SpheraCloud Corporate Sustainability, Sweep
Mistral SmallSweep
Two alternativesCoolset, EcoOnline ESG
Plan A, SweepChanged
Two alternativesCarbonTool, Greenly
no first choiceSustain.Life, Wardnno first choiceagainst: IBM Envizi, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
DeepSeek V4 FlashSweep
Four alternativesCoolset, Greenly, Plan A, Tanso
against: Workiva ESG
SweepHeld
Three alternativesAclymate, Normative, Plan A
against: Watershed
no first choice
Eight alternativesDiligent ESG, IBM Envizi, Novisto, Persefoni, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, Watershed, Workiva ESG
ESG Lift
Three alternativesExecutESG, Multiplye, Sustain.Life
against: Novisto, SpheraCloud Corporate Sustainability, Workiva ESG
no first choice
Five alternativesBriink, Novisto, Persefoni, Plan A, Sweep
against: Workiva ESG
nothing named
Llama 4 MaverickEcoOnline ESG, Novisto, SweepPlan AChanged
Three alternativesCoolset, Greenly, Sweep
no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceagainst: IBM Envizi, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
Qwen 3.7 FlashNovisto
Three alternativesGravity, LogicGate, Sweep
CoolsetChanged
Three alternativesGreenly, Seedling, Sweep
Workiva ESG
Six alternativesIBM Envizi, Novisto, Persefoni, Pulsora, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Watershed
ExecutESG, Persefoni
Two alternativesEFRAG Excel Templates, Sweep
against: IBM Envizi, Workiva ESG
Workiva ESGagainst: Greenly, Normative
Kimi K2Novisto
Four alternativesCoolset, Sustain.Life, Sweep, Workiva ESG
Greenly, SweepChanged
One alternativePlan A
Workiva ESG
Six alternativesIBM Envizi, Novisto, Persefoni, Pulsora, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Watershed
Sustain.Life
Four alternativesAeternumAlly, ExecutESG, OpenESG, OpenEco
no first choiceagainst: ISS, MSCI, Sustainalytics
GLM 4.7 FlashXNovisto
Four alternativesEcoOnline ESG, Greenly, Sustain.Life, Sweep
SweepChanged
Six alternativesGreenly, Normative, Persefoni, Plan A, Watershed, Workiva Carbon
Watershed, Workiva ESG
Five alternativesIBM Envizi, Novisto, Persefoni, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
APLANET, Greenly, Sweep
Four alternativesESG Lift, EcoOnline ESG, ExecutESG, Persefoni
against: Watershed, Workiva ESG
no first choiceagainst: Conservice ESG, Greenly, IBM Envizi, Novisto, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
MiniMax M2.5EcoOnline ESG, Sweep
Four alternativesCoolset, Normative, Novisto, Plan A
Coolset, Plan AChanged
One alternativeGreenly
Pulsora
Five alternativesIBM Envizi, Novisto, Persefoni, Watershed, Workiva ESG
Persefoni
Three alternativesAclymate, Sustain Suite, Sweep
no first choiceagainst: Assent, EcoVadis, IBM Envizi
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency.
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:40yes97 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:26yes37 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:19yes1854 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:07yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 20:31yes3419 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:20yes531 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 18:32yes2247 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 18:41yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:13yes2041 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:57yes1330 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 20:44yes1142 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:20yes921 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:54yes99 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:08yes25 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 20:01yes1827 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 21:06yes168 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 18:00yes2015 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:59yes54 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:35yes2724 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:55yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:45yes532 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 21:06yes1017 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 20:48yes1569 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:25yes521 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:23yes1311 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:48yes611 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:23yes1323 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:53yes209 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 21:06yes2615 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:39yes57 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:04yes1622 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:06yes73 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:03yes1530 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:20yes1437 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:00yes2199 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:38yes526 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:51yes97 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:59yes46 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:16yes1245 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:57yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 19:24yes3921 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:29yes158 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:34yes1514 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:47yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:22yes1870 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:20yes1526 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:50yes1399 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:31yes517 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:39no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:38no09 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:51yes1022 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:25yes209 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 18:01yes119 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:00no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 19:20yes2484 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:40yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:00no029 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:57yes824 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 20:36yes1466 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:36yes1022 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:30yes189 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:54yes47 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:17yes1755 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:42yes206 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 18:50yes3219 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 21:01yes54 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:05yes2747 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 21:03yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:13yes1062 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:52yes2736 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 18:31yes2691 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:56yes2351 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Diligent read as Diligent ESG
EcoOnline read as EcoOnline ESG
IBM read as IBM Envizi
Microsoft SM Premium read as Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability
Microsoft Sustainability Manager read as Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability
Salesforce read as Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
Sphera read as SpheraCloud Corporate Sustainability
Workiva read as Workiva ESG
Workiva (W) read as Workiva ESG
Workiva's full suite read as Workiva ESG
Unresolved, counted raw
AeternumAlly
Briink
Carbon Footprint
Conservice ESG
Credibl ESG
EFRAG Excel Templates
ESGuru
G17 Eco
GRI–ESG KPI Tracker
Gravity
MSCI ESG Manager
Microsoft Sustainable Planner
Minimum
OpenESG
OpenEco
Sopact
StepChange
Tanso
Verra
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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