ESG vendor profiles of Rheaply, Greenstone, &Wider, Givewith Procurement and Kountable: How ESG specialist solutions address sustainability efforts

This Spend Matters PRO post will focus on ESG features offered by solutions for environmental and social governance specialists. The post is part of our series on ESG technology and how businesses can measure their increasing focus on sustainability efforts across their business processes. Today, we will detail five ESG solutions — Rheaply, Greenstone, &Wider, Givewith Procurement and Kountable.

Four PRO posts in the series recently focused on ESG capabilities held by source-to-pay suite providers, supplier management vendors, risk management providers, and supply chain visibility providers.

ESG specialists are direct enablers of ESG data gathering and metric improvement for the areas in which they specialize, rather than process hubs that integrate ESG data as a secondary benefit. Customers engage ESG specialists for specific help on the areas that the specialists can offer expertise in. Beyond specific projects, there are also cost savings or efficiency improvement benefits that customers target.

These specialists sell not only on “doing good,” but also on doing good business. Finally, specialists are well-positioned to deliver reputation boosts associated with sustainability projects. They facilitate interaction with multiple stakeholders that create opportunities for both supply chain improvement and ESG reporting goals.

Challenges for ESG specialists are similar to specialists in any area. Specifically, narrow specialization means an organization has to apply one solution to one problem. On one hand, this can prove effective; on the other, it creates system proliferation and numerous investments to solve the wide range of ESG concerns that a procurement group may need to address.

Additionally, ESG specialists tend to be younger startups and thus require some cooperation from clients to lead roadmap development, generate long-term value, etc. Their focus on ESG concerns are noble, but many are in processes of expanding their value propositions beyond a group of core customers. Potential customers must understand this as they consider working with a specialist, especially if the specialist does not have prior experience in the prospect’s industry.

Let's check out five vendors in the ESG specialist category.