Finance AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index › Equity and corporate › ESG and carbon reporting › Enterprise › September 2026 Edition

ESG and carbon reporting for enterprise buyers

Asked as “ESG reporting software”, and as “carbon accounting platform”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 50 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Workiva
Contested
38% of first choices, contested.
ShowinginAll 41 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

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.
Small businessGreenly41%Clear leaderStanding →Mid-marketSweep25%ContestedStanding →EnterpriseWorkiva38%ContestedThis page

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Workiva38%5%42endorsed leader
02Watershed20%9%33accepted challenger
03IBM Envizi10%21%38accepted challenger
04Sweep6%5%19accepted challenger
05Persefoni4%14%28accepted challenger
06Normative2%9%11accepted challenger
07Enablon2%27%11criticized challenger
08Salesforce Net Zero Cloud2%33%18criticized challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12SAP Sustainability Control Tower0%33%18criticized challenger
11Sphera0%21%19accepted challenger
09Novisto0%10%20accepted challenger
10Diligent ESG0%0%15accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
Sweep vs GreenlySweep vs NovistoGreenly vs Novisto

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
08
09
10
11
12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Workiva38%
02Watershed20%
03IBM Envizi10%
04Sweep6%
05Persefoni4%
06Normative2%
07Enablon2%
08Salesforce Net Zero Cloud2%
09Novisto0%
10Diligent ESG0%
11Sphera0%
12SAP Sustainability Control Tower0%

02What they warned about

Zero 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 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, 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.
Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
33%
6 of 18 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Certain large tech firms (e.g., Salesforce, IBM) are often avoided by consultants due to perceived inferiority compared to specialized ESG vendors.” Mistral Small, negative prompt
IBM Envizi
21%
8 of 38 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“steering clear of solutions from big tech firms like IBM, Salesforce, and others, as they may be inferior” Llama 4 Maverick, negative prompt
SAP Sustainability Control Tower
33%
6 of 18 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“SAP Sustainability Control Tower (per active user/mo) become unpredictable/costly at thousands of users” Grok 4.1 Fast, budget prompt
Oracle
100%
4 of 4 labels negative · 4 of 12 models
“many specialized ESG consultants advise caution when relying on their core ERPs or CRMs for primary ESG reporting” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

66 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. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 938 links across 236 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

guideflow.com
vendor site · Guideflow38 answers · 40 citations · 9 models
gartner.com
33 answers · 47 citations · 11 models
esg-one.co
24 answers · 26 citations · 10 models
coolset.com
vendor site · Coolset24 answers · 24 citations · 9 models
pulsora.com
vendor site · Pulsora22 answers · 23 citations · 9 models
horizonesg.global
vendor site · Horizon ESG17 answers · 22 citations · 8 models
sustaenia.com
17 answers · 17 citations · 8 models
onestopesg.com
16 answers · 18 citations · 6 models
bigeasymagazine.com
16 answers · 16 citations · 8 models
worldmetrics.org
15 answers · 19 citations · 8 models
linkedin.com
13 answers · 22 citations · 8 models
seedling.earth
vendor site · Seedling13 answers · 17 citations · 7 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.

guideflow.com/blog/esg-reporting-software
36 answers · 9 models
gartner.com/reviews/market/esg-management-and-reporting-software
29 answers · 11 models
coolset.com/academy/best-esg-reporting-software-tools
23 answers · 9 models
pulsora.com/blog/best-esg-reporting-software
21 answers · 9 models
esg-one.co/blog/esg-reporting-software-comparison
20 answers · 8 models
horizonesg.global/best-esg-reporting-software
17 answers · 8 models
bigeasymagazine.com/2026/08/26/7-best-esg-reporting-and-disclosure-software…
16 answers · 8 models
emissiontwin.com/blog/best-esg-reporting-software
12 answers · 7 models
sustaenia.com/learn/the-best-esg-tools
12 answers · 7 models
aibusinessgeek.com/articles/ai-esg-reporting-software-2026
11 answers · 8 models

04How 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.
ModelDirect“What is the best ESG reporting software for an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which carbon accounting platform would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade ESG reporting platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best ESG reporting software for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a ESG reporting software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which ESG reporting platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Workiva
Three alternativesDiligent ESG, IBM Envizi, Watershed
PersefoniChanged
Three alternativesIBM Envizi, Normative, Plan A
no first choice
Five alternativesIBM Envizi, Novisto, Position Green, Watershed, Workiva
Workiva
Two alternativesAPLANET, Sweep
no first choiceagainst: Sphera, Workday
GPT-5.4 miniWorkiva
Two alternativesDiligent ESG, IBM Envizi
WatershedChanged
One alternativeNormative
Workiva
Four alternativesDiligent ESG, IBM Envizi, Nasdaq Metrio, Sphera
Workiva
One alternativeIBM Envizi
against: Nasdaq Metrio, Novisto, SAP Sustainability Control Towerno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashWatershed, Workiva
Five alternativesIBM Envizi, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, Sphera, Wolters Kluwer
WatershedChanged
Three alternativesPersefoni, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, Sweep
Workiva
Five alternativesIBM Envizi, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, Sphera, Sweep, Watershed
IBM Envizi
Three alternativesAuditBoard, Novisto, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
no first choiceagainst: Oracle, SAP, Workday
Perplexity SonarWorkiva
Four alternativesBenevity, Diligent ESG, IBM Envizi, Pulsora
WatershedChanged
Four alternativesNormative, Persefoni, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Sphera
Workiva
Nine alternativesBenchmark Gensuite, Diligent ESG, Diligent One Platform, IBM Envizi, Novisto, Persefoni, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Sphera, Watershed
Workiva
Three alternativesEnablon, IBM Envizi, Sphera
no first choiceagainst: Persefoni, Plan A, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, Sphera, Sweep, Watershed
Grok 4.1 FastWorkiva
One alternativeIBM Envizi
WatershedChanged
Three alternativesNormative, Persefoni, Sweep
Workiva
Five alternativesIBM Envizi, Novisto, Persefoni, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Watershed
Obi ESG
Four alternativesAPLANET, CarbonTool, Novisto, Workiva
against: Enablon, Horizon ESG, IBM Envizi, Persefoni, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, WatershedIBM Envizi
Four alternativesBrightest, Enablon, Sweep, Workiva
against: Greenly, IBM Envizi, Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, Normative, Oracle, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
Mistral SmallSweep, Workiva
Two alternativesOneTrust, Riskonnect
Ditchcarbon, NormativeChanged
One alternativeGreenly
Workiva
Five alternativesIBM Envizi, Novisto, Persefoni, Pulsora, Watershed
IBM Envizi, Workivaagainst: Enablon, SAP Sustainability Control Towerno first choiceagainst: IBM Envizi, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, Sphera
DeepSeek V4 FlashWorkiva
Four alternativesDiligent ESG, IBM Envizi, Normative, Watershed
WatershedChanged
Five alternativesIBM Envizi, Normative, Persefoni, Terrascope, Workiva
Persefoni, Watershed, Workiva
Four alternativesIBM Envizi, Novisto, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
Brightest
One alternativeAPLANET
against: IBM Envizi, Persefoni, Watershed, WorkivaSweep, Workivaagainst: IBM Envizi, SAP, Salesforce Net Zero Cloudagainst: Benchmark Gensuite, Enablon, Oracle, Persefoni, SAP, Sphera
Llama 4 MaverickWorkiva
Four alternativesESG:ONE, Emission Twin, Guideflow, Sustaenia
Sweep, WatershedChangedno first choiceEnablon, IBM Envizi, WorkivaWorkiva
Four alternativesIBM Envizi, MetricStream's ESGRC, Sweep, Watershed
against: IBM Envizi, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
Qwen 3.7 FlashWorkiva
Nine alternativesCority, Diligent One Platform, IBM Envizi, Novisto, OneTrust, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Sphera, Watershed, Wolters Kluwer
IBM EnviziChanged
Three alternativesNormative, Persefoni, Watershed
Workiva
Six alternativesEnablon, Persefoni, SAP Business Network, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, Sphera, Watershed
Microsoft Power Platform
Four alternativesPersefoni, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, Watershed, Workiva
no first choiceagainst: EcoVadis, IBM Envizi, Oracle, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
Kimi K2Pulsora, Watershed, Workiva
Four alternativesNovisto, Persefoni, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Sphera
WatershedChanged
Four alternativesIBM Envizi, Persefoni, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, Sweep
Workiva
Seven alternativesIBM Envizi, MSCI ESG Manager / Reporting Service, Novisto, Persefoni, Sphera, Sustainalytics, Watershed
Workiva
One alternativeIBM Envizi
against: SAP Sustainability Control Towerno first choicenothing named
GLM 4.7 FlashXWorkiva
Six alternativesCoupa, Enablon, Novisto, Refinitiv, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
WatershedChanged
Two alternativesPersefoni, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
no first choice
Fourteen alternativesDiligent ESG, Ditchcarbon, Emission Twin, FigBytes, IBM Envizi, Novisto, Persefoni, Position Green, Pulsora, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Sphera, Sweep, Watershed, Workiva
against: SeedlingHorizon ESG
Three alternativesAPLANET, CarbonTool, ESG:ONE
against: IBM Envizi, Novisto, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, Workivano first choicenothing named
MiniMax M2.5Persefoni
Four alternativesCoolset, Enablon, Microsoft Sustainability Manager, Sphera
Ditchcarbon, Salesforce Net Zero CloudChanged
Two alternativesGreenly, Terrascope
Workiva
Four alternativesNovisto, Persefoni, Pulsora, SAP Sustainability Control Tower
SmartSuite
One alternativeLocus Technologies
no first choiceagainst: SiGREEN
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:56yes99 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:23yes36 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:34yes2022 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:42yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 20:20yes3319 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 21:05yes2013 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:49yes911 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:30yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:11yes933 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:15yes1139 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 18:23yes1431 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:14yes515 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 21:06yes99 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:54yes36 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:22yes1722 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:06yes206 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:59yes3218 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:45yes53 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 21:04yes1616 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:56yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:03yes1023 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:19yes2546 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 18:48yes2843 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:52yes512 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:55yes1515 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 20:01yes814 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:34yes1925 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:41yes178 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 21:06yes1516 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:19yes911 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:38yes1724 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 18:38yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 19:51no032 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:14yes2646 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 18:08yes14124 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 18:15yes2540 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 20:59yes1811 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 20:56yes57 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:57yes1628 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:19yes208 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 18:24yes3823 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:31yes55 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 18:36yes2641 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:53yes510 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:32no035 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:26yes2661 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:36yes1230 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:42yes1649 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 20:53yes1814 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:30no011 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:14no018 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:04yes2015 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 20:05yes1414 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:31no07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:50yes2829 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:20yes54 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:49no033 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:27yes2562 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 20:12yes1446 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:45yes916 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:25yes3416 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 20:26yes56 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:54yes1031 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:34yes208 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 20:18yes2218 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:30yes1310 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 20:17yes2576 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:26yes54 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:59yes9102 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:00yes3048 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 20:50yes1152 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:38yes1329 s

Normalization in this category

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

Category-scoped readings
Diligent read as Diligent ESG
Diligent (formerly MultiLogix / HighBond) read as Diligent ESG
IBM read as IBM Envizi
Salesforce read as Salesforce Net Zero Cloud
Wolters Kluwer CCH Tagetik read as CCH Tagetik
Unresolved, counted raw
Benevity
Cozero
EnergyCAP Emissions
Locus Technologies
MSCI ESG Manager / Reporting Service
MetricStream's ESGRC
Microsoft Power Platform (Power BI + Dataverse + Copilot)
Obi ESG
Refinitiv (Truvalue Labs)
SiGREEN
Sustaenia
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in equity and corporate

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
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