Verdantix Carbon Management Software Survey Reveals Firms Still Know Little About Vendors

Verdantix Carbon Management Software Survey Reveals Firms Still Know Little About Vendors

Between January and April 2023, Verdantix conducted the inaugural Net Zero & Climate Risk global corporate survey of 350 senior business executives responsible for net zero and climate change corporate strategies. As part of this survey, Verdantix asked respondents to share their perspectives on 17 vendors operating within the market (see Verdantix Global Corporate Survey 2023: Carbon Management Software Brands Recognition). These vendors came from various backgrounds: dedicated carbon management specialists, EHS software leaders and global technology giants. Our respondents revealed:

• A lack of awareness of the capabilities of carbon management specialists.
  To the global audience of buyers, carbon management specialists like Figbytes, Normative, Persefoni and Sweep are still unknown quantities. The majority of respondents indicated that they are unaware of these firms. Yet at a regional level, awareness was much higher. This reflects the fact that these vendors have yet to expand significantly beyond core geographies; they also typically adopt industry-focused sales strategies. Persefoni, which possesses strong financed emissions management capabilities (see Verdantix Green Quadrant: Enterprise Carbon Management Software 2022), enjoys considerably higher brand awareness amongst financial services respondents in the US, with 60% indicating knowledge of the firm.

• EHS software vendors maintain a strong position in the market.
  Vendors with robust adjacent offerings in the EHS market have strong awareness for their carbon management capabilities among respondents. Cority, Enablon, Intelex and UL Solutions all performed above average in brand awareness perception, with 7% indicating that Enablon had ‘market-leading’ functionality, the highest across the survey. EHS vendors have aggressively targeted both carbon and ESG management as areas of commercial growth; Wolters Kluwer announced a new, dedicated ‘Corporate Performance & ESG’ division in February 2023 and Cority acquired Reporting21, which offered sustainability and carbon management capabilities, in September 2022. More broadly, however, the prominence of EHS vendors reflects their deep experience in data management, aggregation and reporting, borne from a lengthy period of software development. Furthermore, EHS vendors are able to provide leading air quality and regulatory emissions management functionality – a core element of carbon management for high-emitting firms, and a focus area that has thus far been neglected by new entrants to the market.

• Global technology giants dominate brand awareness.
  IBM, Salesforce and Schneider Electric were the top three vendors for brand awareness across our survey respondents. Each offers a different ‘flavour’ of carbon management – with IBM’s offerings centred on Envizi, which it acquired in January 2022, Salesforce providing dual net zero and ESG reporting management capabilities, and Schneider Electric’s strong portfolio of built-environment and energy focused solutions. From a competitive standpoint, smaller, specialist vendors must be prepared to compete with global giants for brand awareness; other organizations who have entered this space include Microsoft and SAP. These global vendors enjoy high levels of familiarity among buyers, who may have experience using their more prolific offerings. From an integration standpoint, the benefits for the end user are clear: carbon management relies heavily on data integration with adjacent platforms.