Workiva Carbon (formerly known as Sustain.Life): Your Solution for Accurate Carbon Accounting and ESG Reporting
Summary
Cut through the green tape
We don’t push agendas. At Net Zero Compare, we cut through the hype and fear to deliver the straightforward facts you need for making informed decisions on green products and services. Whether motivated by compliance, customer demands, or a real passion for the environment, you’re welcome here. We provide reliable information—why you seek it is not our concern.
Details
Deep dive
"Calculate your carbon footprint, set science-based targets, and simplify climate disclosures with the most comprehensive sustainability management software on the market."
Source: sustain.life
Acquisition and Rebranding
In June 2024, Workiva, a global leader in financial and ESG reporting, acquired Sustain.Life, a fast-growing carbon management software platform, for approximately $100 million in June 2024. Sustain.Life was originally founded by Mike Hanrahan and a group of former Walmart executives. Following the acquisition, Workiva launched Workiva Carbon, integrating Sustain.Life's technology and expertise into their existing software platform. The platform quickly gained traction for its ability to help organizations measure and reduce their carbon emissions, offering tools for carbon accounting, sustainability management, and compliance with emerging environmental regulations.
The integration of Sustain.Life’s advanced carbon management tools into Workiva’s broader ESG and GRC platform marked a significant expansion of Workiva’s sustainability capabilities. The rebranded Workiva Carbon enables companies to calculate emissions, manage supplier data, set decarbonization targets, and streamline ESG reporting.
Sources: sustain.life, siliconrepublic.com
Key Features
Emissions Tracking
Workiva Carbon enables businesses to calculate and monitor their carbon emissions across Scope 1, 2, and 3. This covers direct emissions from owned or controlled sources, indirect emissions from the consumption of purchased electricity, and all other indirect emissions that occur in a company’s value chain. The platform uses real-time data from multiple sources, such as ERP systems and utility providers, and leverages externally validated emissions factors covering over 240 countries.
Target Setting and Net-Zero Management
The platform facilitates science-based target setting, allowing companies to align their decarbonization efforts with global climate objectives. Organizations can track their progress toward net-zero goals and assess the impact of various reduction pathways. This helps businesses create structured and accountable plans for emissions reduction.
Supply Chain Management
A unique feature of Workiva Carbon is its focus on the supply chain, where it offers tools for supplier engagement. Companies can create surveys for suppliers to gather crucial environmental data and integrate that into their emissions reporting. This enhances the visibility of emissions across the supply chain, enabling companies to assess risk and take actions to decarbonize their upstream and downstream operations
Reporting and Compliance
Workiva Carbon simplifies compliance with global climate regulations such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the SEC's climate disclosure rules, and California’s Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253). It automates the process of aligning emissions data with these frameworks, ensuring that companies can produce audit-ready and consistent reports for investors, regulators, and other stakeholders.
Data Integration
Workiva Carbon allows seamless integration of emissions data with other business functions, including finance, accounting, audit, legal, and risk management. By connecting all these functions, the platform reduces errors associated with manual processes and enables cross-functional teams to collaborate using a unified data source, ensuring transparency and consistency across the entire organization.
Validated Emissions Factor Library
A key feature of Workiva Carbon, inherited from Sustain.Life, is its Emissions Factor Library, which is now fully validated. This library provides businesses with reliable data to calculate their carbon emissions accurately across multiple sectors and geographies. Emissions factors are essential in determining the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted per unit of activity, such as energy consumption, transportation, or manufacturing processes.
The Sustain.Life Emissions Factor Library ensures that companies can pull from thousands of externally validated emissions factors to cover a broad range of operations. The validation process ensures that all emissions factors are up-to-date and align with internationally recognized standards, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines and other respected environmental agencies.
Use Cases Across Industries
Manufacturing
Supply Chain Emissions Tracking: Create supplier engagement surveys to capture critical data from across the supply chain, enabling comprehensive Scope 3 emissions calculations.
Global Emissions Monitoring: Track greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across facilities and locations using thousands of externally validated emissions factors covering 240+ countries and territories.
Decarbonization Planning: Set science-based targets, assess ESG risks across the supply chain, and evaluate decarbonization efforts.
Finance
ESG-Aligned Reporting: Automatically align emissions data to voluntary and mandated frameworks, creating audit-ready reports that meet regulatory requirements like the EU's CSRD and the SEC's climate rule.
Risk Assessment: Integrate carbon data with other business functions, including accounting and risk management, to assess climate-related financial risks.
Investment Portfolio Alignment: Use the platform's data integration capabilities to analyze and report on the carbon footprint of investment portfolios, aligning them with ESG criteria.
Retail
Scope 3 Emissions Management: Calculate and track emissions across the entire value chain, including those from products, transportation, and consumer use.
Supplier Engagement: Utilize supplier engagement surveys to gather data on sustainability practices and emissions from vendors.
Transparent Reporting: Create consistent disclosures for regulators, investors, and other stakeholders, enhancing transparency in sustainability efforts.
Energy
Emissions Inventory: Automatically calculate emissions inventories across Scopes 1, 2, and 3, crucial for an industry with significant direct and indirect emissions.
Regulatory Compliance: Meet the demands of evolving climate regulations specific to the energy sector, such as California's SB 253 and SB 261.
Net Zero Planning: Set and manage science-based targets for emissions reduction, visualize mitigation pathways, and track progress towards net zero goals
Sources: investor.workiva.com, esgtoday.com, workiva.com, esgdive.com
Pricing
For businesses interested in exploring the platform further, requesting a personalized demo is the best way to understand how it can address their specific carbon accounting and reporting needs. The demo provides potential users with an overview of how the platform works, including carbon accounting, emissions tracking, and reporting tools. Additionally, companies can inquire about pricing tailored to their requirements by filling out the demo request form on the Workiva Carbon Demo Request Page.
