ESG reporting software compared: Workiva vs Persefoni and a rule-based list

Start with the work your team must complete

Match the buying task to the products to evaluate

Carbon accounting, supplier collection and disclosure preparation can overlap in a platform, but they require different acceptance evidence. Each row names the products of the rule-based list below whose record documents that task with a source, in the list's order; the order is not a ranking.

These scope distinctions follow the linked product sections below. No published feature list establishes that every reporting framework, supplier questionnaire or partner connection is included in a single subscription.

Workiva vs Persefoni: disclosure coordination or carbon inventory?

Start with the bottleneck. Workiva is a candidate when collecting approved sustainability metrics and coordinating disclosure contributors is the central task. Persefoni is a candidate when building and maintaining a carbon inventory is the starting requirement. Both have reporting scope, so compare the actual outputs and applications in the proposal rather than treating these starting points as exclusive capabilities.

Bring the same reporting sample to both demos

These are acceptance tests, not confirmed features of every plan. Persefoni's calculation product page still labels some logs and calculation detail as coming soon to Pro, and advanced data controls and permissions as coming soon to Advanced. Its free Report Builder is distinct from paid GHG Metrics Reports; confirm the exact output and release status before contracting.

1. Calculation ownership: Follow one activity record into a carbon result and a disclosure. Ask Workiva to name the Workiva Carbon or external calculation scope required; ask Persefoni to identify the Pro or Advanced capabilities and exports used.
2. Review and corrections: Assign a contributor and reviewer, correct an approved value, and inspect the supporting evidence and downstream report changes. Workiva's approval procedure lets any approver in a shared step complete that step, so demonstrate separate successive steps when two distinct approvals are necessary. Confirm the required user licences, workspace permissions and history exports.
3. Full programme cost: Request the same entities, data connections, reporting outputs and support in writing. Separate subscription scope from implementation and confirm whether collaboration or a particular export changes the price.

If the organisation uses separate calculation and disclosure tools, demonstrate the transfer and reconciliation between them. Do not assume a native Workiva to Persefoni connector or that either product removes the reporting team's responsibility for the underlying data.

Greenly vs Novisto: supplier response, inventory or disclosure

Choose by the supplier response, inventory or disclosure you must deliver. Carbon engagement and broader ESG evidence can overlap, but product names do not establish equivalent permissions, methods or reporting outputs. An editorial pair, listed alphabetically; other products appear in the rule-based list above.

Test one supplier response and one correction

1. Invite a supplier and identify the access model, paid seat and information visible to that user.
2. Request period, units, boundary and supporting evidence. Distinguish reported data from an estimate or modelled result.
3. Reject an incomplete response, submit a correction and require the intended reviewers to approve in the configured sequence. Identify the accepted version and who can return or override the record.
4. Follow the result into the intended carbon calculation or ESG disclosure. Record manual handoffs and unavailable exports.
5. Confirm that the demonstrated control is released in the purchased account, including API access and reporting add-ons. Greenly lists custom API and SSO as optional additions, and its supplier help marks survey sending as plan-dependent. Novisto documents API ingestion and bulk imports, but a named endpoint, connector or completed implementation is not established by those pages; require the entitlement and mapping in the proposal.
6. Request equivalent supplier counts, reporting periods, entities, connectors and services in every quote.

These are proposed acceptance exercises, not tests QHSEtech performed or proof that every candidate includes each step. A supplier carbon survey is narrower than a labour, ethics or governance questionnaire; scope the actual questionnaire with each candidate.

Name the reporting basis before selecting templates

The GHG Protocol Corporate Standard addresses corporate emissions inventories. Its guidance distinguishes inventory preparation from verification; a calculated total alone is not an assurance conclusion.

For a value-chain inventory, the Scope 3 Standard accounts for emissions in 15 categories, upstream and downstream of a company's operations. Ask each vendor which categories its product calculates, which method each uses (spend-based, activity-based or supplier-specific) and how an estimate is replaced by supplier data without double counting. A product that covers some categories is not a complete Scope 3 inventory.

GRI Standards concern impacts on the economy, environment and people. IFRS S1 addresses sustainability-related risks and opportunities relevant to users of general purpose financial reports. These are different reporting perspectives, with requirements that should not be reduced to interchangeable template names.

For CSRD, establish entity scope, reporting year, national implementation and the applicable ESRS version before configuring tasks. Use the current CSRD scope review. A customer questionnaire and a direct legal reporting obligation are different starting points.

Mid-size companies after the Omnibus: voluntary reporting and the value-chain cap

Checked 22 October 2026 against EUR-Lex, the European Commission, EFRAG, the IFRS Foundation, the TNFD and ESMA. Written for companies of roughly 250 to 1,000 employees; general information, not legal advice.

What Directive (EU) 2026/470 leaves below the thresholds

The amending Directive keeps a company's own sustainability report for those with both more than 1,000 employees on average and net turnover above €450 million. The CSRD guide tracks timing, groups and national transposition. Below either line there is no CSRD report to file, yet three things still reach the company:

• A voluntary route. The recitals leave smaller undertakings free to report by choice, and a new Article 29ca let the Commission set a standard for voluntary use by undertakings averaging up to 1,000 employees.
• A cap on CSRD-driven requests. When a reporting company gathers data for its own CSRD report, it may not require more from a value-chain partner of up to 1,000 employees than that standard sets. A contract clause asking for more on that basis does not bind, the requester must flag the excess items and the partner's right to refuse them, and it may rely on the partner's size self-declaration unless that is manifestly wrong.
• Requests the cap does not cover. Due-diligence duties, other EU or national law and a requester's own risk management fall outside it, and sharing more by choice stays allowed. The Regulation's recitals still encourage banks, insurers and other financial institutions to keep their wider requests within the voluntary standard.

A company with more than 1,000 employees but turnover at or below €450 million is also outside the mandatory scope, yet the cap does not protect it: protection turns on headcount alone.

The voluntary standard (VSME) as presented on 22 October 2026

EUR-Lex: the legal text

Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1560, adopted 3 July 2026 and published on 21 September 2026, is marked in force. Annex I carries the standard, built on Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/1710 of 30 July 2025 with its Basic and Comprehensive modules; the recitals treat that Recommendation as without legal effect once the Regulation entered into force. The standard is meant for undertakings averaging up to 1,000 employees, creates no reporting duty, and its users need not obtain assurance.

The cap list

Annex II holds the cap and covers essential datapoints only, with one list for undertakings above 10 employees and another for 10 or fewer. Article 3, which sets the cap, applies to financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2027.

European Commission

Its 3 July 2026 announcement presents the standard as a single, proportionate framework for smaller companies outside the CSRD, intended to make specific requests from large companies and financial institutions easier to answer.

EFRAG: guidance and tools

The SME page still describes the VSME as intended for companies with fewer than 250 employees and links the 2025 Recommendation. The digital template page says the standard has not been tested for companies above 250 employees, and that the template, XBRL taxonomy, converter (with a migration tool) and explanatory note are being updated for the Commission's standard, with publication scheduled for Q4 2026. The current template is version 1.3.0 of 11 June 2026.

Our reading: the law lets a company of 250 to 1,000 employees use the standard and invoke the cap, but EFRAG's free tooling was built and tested for smaller firms, so check multi-site and group reporting before relying on it. The VSME glossary entry sets out the modules, the cap and a worked request.

What a mid-size buyer should ask an ESG reporting tool

1. Edition: Which text does the VSME output follow: Annex I of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1560 or the 2025 Recommendation? Ask when exports will match the updated EFRAG template and taxonomy, and who moves last year's figures across.
2. Modules and omissions: Show the Basic and Comprehensive modules held apart, with every omitted datapoint marked as not applicable or voluntary and the reason kept beside it.
3. Request log against the cap: Enter a real customer questionnaire, map each question to the Annex II list, flag what goes beyond it, and record the purpose the requester gave and whether you declined.
4. Size evidence: Work out the average headcount of the preceding financial year from payroll or HR data, and keep the size self-declaration you sent, with its date and approver.
5. Scope 1 and 2 with a trail: Trace one fuel or electricity invoice through unit, period, factor and result. Then answer two different questionnaires from that approved value, correct it once and show both histories. The standard also points preparers to Scope 3 information where it is relevant.
6. Cost against effort: EFRAG's Excel template is a free download, its converter is open source, and EFRAG lists greenhouse gas calculators, typically free and linked to national governments, as a preliminary selection. Price the subscription, set-up and internal hours against that baseline; software earns its cost through multi-site collection, approvals, evidence and repeated requests.
7. Assurance: Users of the voluntary standard are not obliged to obtain assurance, so treat an assurance module as optional unless a customer contract or lender asks for it in writing.

Of the 24 products in the rule-based list above, none has a record that mentions the VSME or the EU voluntary standard, and one mentions SMEs or small and medium-sized companies, each as of its own source-check date. A mention would not prove a VSME export, and silence does not rule one out, so ask for the export in the demonstration. No product is named or recommended here for a company size.

Also checked on 22 October 2026: nature and enforcement

What we could not verify on 22 October 2026: a date within Q4 2026 for EFRAG's updated template and taxonomy; whether EFRAG's updated materials will address companies of 250 to 1,000 employees; how each Member State transposes the cap, due by 19 March 2027; and the Annex II datapoints item by item, which this section does not reproduce.

When operational environmental records are the starting point

Evaluate for environmental records connected to operational EHS. Trace a site environmental finding through review, corrective action and the management report, and name the modules involved. Ask the quote to name the selected environmental applications and any separate reporting tool, then demonstrate the site-to-report workflow.

Environmental management applications, listed by the same kind of rule

Compare the actual pricing basis, not an invented seat price

Persefoni Pro provides a free starting scope with a single-user base; paid additions and Advanced remain separate procurement decisions. Novisto advertises unlimited users, data points and outputs without publishing a subscription amount. Neither structure can be compared fairly by assigning an assumed price to each contributor. Persefoni plans, Novisto subscription basis.

For quote-only products, request the same reporting boundary and deliverables. Record the quoted currency, billing period, minimum term, entities, modules, supplier access, data preparation, implementation, interfaces and support separately. If a field is absent from the proposal, mark it unknown rather than treating it as included or free.

A demo request is not evidence of a free platform trial; each profile records its own trial status. Persefoni Pro is a permanent free plan with its own limits.

Primary sources

Framework overviews checked 19 September 2026; the Scope 3 Standard page checked 24 September 2026. Novisto and Diligent ESG evidence was rechecked 28 September 2026. The mid-size section lists its own sources, read 22 October 2026. Other product claims use the dated evidence in each product section and the linked profiles.

• GHG Protocol: Corporate Standard
• GHG Protocol: Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard
• GRI: Sustainability reporting standards
• IFRS: IFRS S1 overview