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Greenly
Greenly is a Paris-based carbon management platform founded in 2019, rated #1 Sustainability Management Software on G2, and trusted by 2,500+ clients across Europe and North America. Built for organizations without specialist sustainability teams, its EcoPilot AI copilot guides users through carbon accounting, CSRD reporting, Life Cycle Assessments, and supplier engagement — producing results in weeks rather than months. It occupies the underserved gap between spreadsheets and enterprise platforms that SMEs fall into when their first carbon obligation arrives.
Watershed
Watershed is an enterprise carbon management platform built for organizations that have already committed to climate targets and need to connect emissions data to actual reduction decisions — not just to disclosure requirements. Its strength lies in Scope 3 depth, AI-powered supply chain measurement, and a 100% third-party audit pass rate across its customer base.
Greenly
Watershed
Sustainability Impact
15/20
17/20
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Features & Capabilities
16/20
18/20
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Value for Money
18/20
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14/20
Ease of Use
19/20
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15/20
Trust & Maturity
14/20
19/20
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Pricing
paid
enterprise
Year founded
2019
2019
Best for
European SMEs and mid-market companies (10–2,000 employees) taking their first or second step in carbon accounting — particularly those responding to customer CSRD supply chain requests, EcoVadis assessments, or preparing for Wave 2 CSRD obligations with limited internal expertise.
Large enterprises and multinationals with complex global supply chains and an in-house sustainability team ready to move beyond annual reporting toward operational decarbonization decisions.
Categories
Carbon & ClimateCarbon Accounting
Carbon & ClimateCarbon Accounting
Carbon Scopes
Scope 1 (Direct emissions)Scope 2 (Indirect energy)Scope 3 (Value chain)
Scope 1 (Direct emissions)Scope 2 (Indirect energy)Scope 3 (Value chain)
Key features
- EcoPilot AI — Guided Carbon Accounting for Non-Expert Teams EcoPilot is Greenly's embedded AI copilot designed specifically for sustainability managers who are not carbon accounting specialists. It guides users through data collection (100+ enterprise integrations covering accounting software, expense management, fleet telematics, and utility data), prompts for missing information, explains methodology choices in plain language, and generates the carbon footprint calculation aligned with the GHG Protocol. Automated API connections handle both spend-based and activity-based data collection, reducing manual entry. The AI detects anomalies in submitted data before they propagate into the final footprint — a quality control layer that matters when the team completing the assessment has no prior GHG accounting experience. EcoPilot also guides users through CSRD-specific requirements: XBRL tagging, double materiality assessment tooling, and ESRS E1 data point completion, with expert guidance from Greenly's network of 100+ implementation partners for organizations requiring hands-on support.
- Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) — Product Carbon Footprint at SME Scale Greenly includes Life Cycle Assessment capability within the base platform — a feature that most carbon accounting platforms reserve for enterprise tiers or exclude entirely. LCA enables organizations to calculate the environmental impact of a specific product across its full lifecycle (raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, use, and end-of-life), producing a Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) that can be shared with customers and used for product-level environmental claims. For European manufacturers, this capability is increasingly material: the EU Battery Regulation requires PCFs for batteries from 2024; the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation will extend similar requirements across additional product categories. CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism) compliance tools are included for organizations importing goods subject to carbon pricing. For SMEs facing customer PCF data requests they cannot currently answer, Greenly's LCA provides the most accessible path to a defensible product footprint.
- CSRD and EcoVadis Integration — Compliance at SME Price Point Greenly provides CSRD-specific tooling at a price point accessible to Wave 2 CSRD-obligated organizations: ESRS data collection workflow, automated double materiality assessment, XBRL tagging and xHTML export for ESAP submission, and expert guidance from implementation partners. CSRD reporting time reduction from 1,000+ hours to under 100 hours is cited in platform documentation. The EcoVadis integration deserves specific attention: Greenly facilitates EcoVadis assessment completion by organizing sustainability data collection and providing a structured output that maps to EcoVadis questionnaire requirements. For SMEs receiving EcoVadis assessment requests from their largest customers — increasingly common as CSDDD and CSRD drive supply chain ESG data requests — this integration reduces the EcoVadis assessment burden from weeks of manual data gathering to an automated, pre-structured export. SBTi target-setting tooling and supplier engagement workflows for Scope 3 Category 1 primary data collection round out the compliance feature set.
- Scope 3 Measurement Engine with 500,000+ Emission Factors Watershed's carbon calculation engine draws on CEDA — the Comprehensive Environmental Data Archive, now maintained as an open-source dataset through the Cornerstone Sustainability Data Initiative — alongside more than 500,000 annually updated emission factors covering all 15 Scope 3 categories. The Product Footprints capability, launched in 2025, uses AI to decompose physical goods into constituent materials and manufacturing processes, allowing organizations to move beyond spend-based estimation for the most emissions-intensive purchased categories. This is the technical foundation that makes Scope 3 Category 1 actionable rather than approximate.
- Decarbonization Planning and Scenario Modeling Where most carbon platforms stop at measurement, Watershed extends into what the data should produce: a decision. The platform includes tools for SBTi target modeling, emissions hotspot identification by supplier, category and geography, scenario planning for reduction initiatives, and a vetted marketplace for clean power procurement and carbon removal projects. Organizations can simulate the emissions impact of switching suppliers, renegotiating logistics contracts, or changing energy sources — and see the result in their corporate footprint before committing budget.
- Audit-Ready Data Lineage and Regulatory Reporting Watershed maintains full data lineage for every emissions calculation — the methodology applied, the emission factor version used, the data source, and the review workflow that approved the figure. The platform supports CSRD (including ESRS E1 data points), ISSB/TCFD, CDP, California SB 253/261, and Australian ASRS reporting with pre-built framework outputs. The 100% third-party audit pass rate across Watershed's customer base reflects both the calculation methodology and the governance controls embedded in the platform. Assurance-ready data is not a feature add-on; it is the default output format.
Pros
- The time-to-first-footprint for organizations without prior carbon accounting experience is Greenly's most distinctive operational advantage. An SME that begins a Greenly engagement in January can have a completed, GHG Protocol- aligned carbon footprint ready for customer submission by March — a timeline that is achievable with Greenly's EcoPilot guidance and standard enterprise integrations, and that would require 6–12 months with a consultant engagement or 3–6 months with a specialist platform requiring more configuration. The #1 G2 ranking reflects this specific value: among organizations doing carbon accounting for the first time, Greenly produces results faster than any alternative approach.
- The combination of organizational carbon footprint, product Life Cycle Assessment, CSRD tooling, EcoVadis integration, and SBTi target-setting in a single platform at SME pricing is genuinely unusual in the market. Most platforms offer two or three of these; Greenly offers all five at a price point (starting ~$539/year for the smallest tier) that makes the full capability set accessible to organizations that would otherwise need multiple vendor relationships. For a manufacturing SME facing simultaneous demands for an organizational carbon footprint (from an investor), a product PCF (from a retail customer), an EcoVadis assessment (from another customer), and CSRD ESRS E1 data (from a CSRD-obligated parent company), Greenly's coverage breadth eliminates the multi-vendor complexity that a specialist approach would require.
- The EcoPilot AI assistance specifically addresses the knowledge barrier that prevents many SMEs from attempting carbon accounting at all — not the tool cost, but the expertise gap. A sustainability manager hired 6 months ago with a background in communications, tasked with completing the company's first GHG inventory, faces a methodology learning curve that a Normative advisor solves with expert engagement and Greenly solves with AI guidance. Both approaches produce results. Greenly produces them faster and at lower cost. For organizations where the first footprint is the milestone — not the first assurance-grade footprint — Greenly's guided approach is the right calibration.
- The depth of Watershed's Scope 3 coverage sets it apart from every platform in its class. With more than 500,000 emission factors, the CEDA database, AI-powered product footprinting, and supplier engagement workflows that collect primary data at category level, Watershed gives organizations the foundation to treat Scope 3 Category 1 as a managed cost rather than an estimated liability. For enterprises with complex global supply chains — where Scope 3 routinely represents 70-90% of total emissions — this is not a secondary feature. It is the primary reason the platform gets selected.
- The connection between measurement and action is built into the platform architecture rather than bolted on as a reporting module. Scenario modeling, SBTi target simulation, clean power procurement, and supplier decarbonization workflows are not separate products. They sit alongside the carbon accounting engine and draw on the same dataset — which means the number that appears in a decarbonization scenario is the same number that appears in the disclosure. This eliminates the reconciliation problem that breaks programs running separate tools for calculation, reporting, and action planning.
- The 100% third-party audit pass rate across Watershed's customer base is a verifiable operational track record, not a marketing claim. Full calculation transparency — methodology, emission factor version, data source, review workflow — is available for every data point. For organizations approaching ISAE 3000 limited or reasonable assurance for the first time, that audit lineage is not an optional feature; it is the condition that makes assurance engagement possible in a reasonable timeframe.
Cons
- The methodology depth and verification rigor that enterprise platforms provide is not matched in Greenly. Several user reviews note that strong internal verification was necessary — that without dedicated review, errors can propagate into the GHG inventory. For organizations whose footprint will be submitted to a Big Four assurance provider under ISAE 3000 limited assurance, or whose SBTi submission will undergo technical review, Greenly's guided AI approach requires more internal quality control than a platform with TÜV-verified methodology (Normative) or a named GHGP-certified advisor (Normative). The platform can produce a defensible footprint — but it requires the internal sustainability team to review outputs critically rather than accepting AI-generated results without validation.
- Greenly's pricing starts at the SME end but scales upward for organizations with larger data volumes, more complex Scope 3 inventories, or enterprise integration requirements. Several user reviews note that the platform can feel expensive for smaller organizations once the full feature set is required — and that pricing transparency is limited (no published tier matrix, pricing requires sales engagement). For organizations scaling from SME to mid-market, the cost trajectory should be modeled before committing to a multi-year Greenly relationship, as the price point advantage narrows as complexity grows.
- The platform's coverage breadth — carbon footprint, LCA, CSRD, EcoVadis, SBTi — means no single capability is as deep as dedicated specialist platforms. For Scope 3 Category 1 at the depth of Watershed's Product Footprints AI-powered decomposition, Greenly does not compete. For CSRD governance and multi-framework ESG data management at the depth of Novisto, Greenly's tooling is more limited. For organizations where one of these specific capabilities is the primary requirement rather than a secondary output, the specialist platform serves them better than Greenly's broad-but-shallower approach. Greenly is optimized for the organization that needs all five capabilities at acceptable quality — not the organization that needs one capability at maximum quality.
- Watershed's pricing structure — custom-quoted, enterprise-negotiated, with no published tiers — creates a budget visibility problem at the evaluation stage. Market intelligence suggests annual contracts range from $50,000 for single-entity mid-market organizations to $400,000 or more for global multinationals with complex data integration requirements. Add-on costs for implementation, advanced training, and additional regulatory modules are common. Organizations without a sustainability team capable of running a structured procurement process and managing vendor negotiation will be at a disadvantage before the contract is signed.
- The platform's ESG coverage is intentionally carbon-first. Watershed handles ESRS E1 data points with depth and precision. Its social and governance coverage — the S and G in ESRS S1, S2, S3, S4 and ESRS G1 — is comparatively thin. For organizations whose primary compliance obligation under CSRD covers the full set of ESRS data points, Watershed must be complemented by a broader ESG data management platform. Organizations evaluating Watershed as a standalone CSRD solution should stress-test this gap before committing.
- Watershed is built on the assumption that the buying organization has an in-house sustainability team capable of directing the program. The platform surfaces opportunities, models scenarios, and generates audit-ready data — but it does not substitute for the strategic judgment that decides which reduction initiatives to prioritize. Organizations without a Head of Sustainability or equivalent function will find that Watershed delivers a powerful dataset and limited guidance on what to do with it. For those organizations, platforms that bundle advisory services more tightly into the product — or specialist consultancies — are a more realistic starting point.
