Sustainability management software is fast becoming a required tool for any modern business. Not only can it help you track and measure your organization’s environmental footprint to aid in sustainability reporting, but it can also provide metrics to help you with risk management, efficiency, compliance management, supply chain transparency, and more.

What you get from your sustainability software comes down to the software you choose and how you use it. To help you get started, here’s our guide to ESG software and EcoCart’s sustainability management solution to help ecommerce companies manage their emissions monitoring.

What Is Sustainability Management Software?

Sustainable business takes work. Everything we do has an impact, and when you’re trying to minimize that impact, you have to track and measure all areas of your operations. Even activities that seem minor can add up and contribute to your impact in a big way. Software for sustainability makes it easy to collect pertinent sustainability data. It automatically tracks, measures, and reports your environmental footprint and provides detailed analytics so that you have a complete picture of your impact and ascertain where you are in terms of your goals. Sustainability management platforms are necessary for any organization serious about achieving sustainability initiatives and reducing its business carbon footprint. 

Benefits Of Sustainability Management Software In Ecommerce

Ecommerce companies face plenty of challenges when it comes to reaching their sustainability KPIs. Besides packaging waste and greenhouse gas emissions associated with shipping, supply chain complexity makes it difficult to ensure sustainable sourcing and poor logistics can increase carbon emissions and decrease efficiency. Sustainability software can help mitigate these challenges and more.

ESG software gathers and tracks sustainability data surrounding energy use, water use, carbon accounting, and waste management. It even has tools to help you track and manage your suppliers so that you can better handle your Scope 3 emissions and supply chain traceability. 

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Sustainability software companies offer benefits beyond environmental management. Software that follows established sustainability frameworks, like the major carbon standards, helps ensure compliance, identifies areas for improved efficiency, and highlights opportunities for cost reductions. The software also provides crucial metrics to create a sustainability report, which is required for most green business certifications. 

While sustainability management tools are simply data collectors, they are indispensable instruments that help you gain a full picture of your environmental impact, where you stand in your ESG goals, and highlight areas of risk so that you can address challenges before they become problems.

This type of reporting software can also help you avoid any greenwashing accusations. By having comprehensive, quantified, and easy-to-understand metrics readily available, you can quickly quash any allegations and substantiate your sustainability performance claims. In a world where customers are incredibly wary of dishonest companies, this feature alone can be indispensable.

Key Features In Sustainability Management Software

Not all sustainability software is the same. Just like when you look into reliable carbon mitigation programs, you must do your due diligence to ensure that the sustainability management tool or solution that you choose follows trusted standards, is compliant with trusted entities, and manages your data efficiently.

Here are some of the top features you should look for in your sustainability software.

• Comprehensive data collection: The data should be collected and managed thoroughly and easily so that you can participate in sustainability reporting. High-quality ESG platforms will have a dashboard that is simple to understand and navigate. 
• Integratable and scalable systems: ESG software should be able to integrate with your systems to collect data, and it should be able to grow as you do. 
• Supply chain collaboration: Although your sustainability software cannot automatically connect with and track your suppliers’ sustainability, it should provide tools to make engagement easy.
• Verification: As with everything else in the realm of sustainability, ESG software needs third-party verification to ensure that its data collection methods align with established frameworks and accurately portray your organization’s environmental footprint. It should comply with entities like the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), the Science-Based Targets (SBTi), or the GHG Scope 3 Protocol. 
• KPI monitoring: Because one of the primary purposes of sustainability software is to help you reach your ESG goals, it should offer tools to help you track and monitor your sustainability KPIs. 
• Alerts: Your software constantly monitors your impact and provides real-time data and analytics. As part of this, it should alert you to any immediate risks so that you can address the issue and stay on track to achieve your sustainability initiatives.

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Introducing EcoCart’s Sustainability Management Software

EcoCart is an effective sustainability management platform that offers ecommerce brands tools to track their emissions and solutions to reduce those emissions. And for those emissions that a business cannot cut, EcoCart provides the ability to invest in climate impact projects. All of these services help ecommerce organizations like yours achieve their ESG goals.

While other ESG platforms cater to a broad range of industries and provide metrics covering all three aspects of ESG—environmental, social, and governance—EcoCart specializes in greenhouse gas emissions reduction and monitoring for ecommerce businesses. 

One of the most significant areas of impact for ecommerce companies is their carbon footprint associated with transport and deliveries. That’s why we’ve developed a platform to help ecommerce companies understand their greenhouse gas emissions and manage their footprint, so that they can work toward net zero goals. We also offer verified climate impact projects so that our partners can mitigate the carbon emissions they cannot yet remove from operations or provide additional support to carbon reduction efforts.

Here are some EcoCart features that ecommerce businesses looking to manage their greenhouse gas emissions can utilize.

• Sustainability dashboard: Track and measure your carbon output in real time with our easy-to-use sustainability dashboard. It’s a sustainability management system that focuses on your carbon management, specially designed to accommodate ecommerce companies.
• Life cycle analysis: Through EcoCart’s LCAs, we work with your brand to understand where your emissions are coming from so that you can devise a plan to reduce emissions throughout your operations.
• Reduce your carbon footprint: This is where EcoCart’s proprietary algorithm comes in. We connect directly to your checkout, estimating each unique order’s carbon footprint in real time by looking at variables like shipping distance, package weight, and product type. Then you can offer your customers the option to mitigate the carbon associated with each order by investing in climate impact projects. We have various projects to choose from, including reforestation, infrastructure design, wetlands conservation, and more, so you can select a program that best aligns with your brand.
• Sustainability marketing toolkit: Although the primary goal of managing your sustainability performance is environmental responsibility, we must recognize that ESG has marketing potential. That’s why we offer a sustainability marketing toolkit to our customers so that they can effectively communicate their efforts to their customers. 

Utilizing EcoCart helps you track and manage your carbon output, improves customer loyalty, increases sales, and benefits your business overall. Modern consumers want to support sustainable businesses. Integrating EcoCart into your ecommerce business illustrates your commitment to your own sustainability goals, gives you tangible metrics to share with your audience, and engages your customers in your sustainability journey.

Success Stories

You don’t have to take our word for it. We have a long list of happy customers who have improved their carbon output and seen business growth due to partnering with EcoCart.

Face the Future

Beauty ecommerce company Face the Future uses EcoCart to offer customers the option to reduce carbon emissions for their deliveries. But, they wanted a way to further engage their customers in their sustainability journey. To do this, they worked with EcoCart and Loyalty Lion so that their clients could gain loyalty points and support reforestation efforts by investing in climate impact projects to reduce their emissions per order. As a result, the members who invested in climate impact projects at checkout had a 130% higher AOV than non-members, and they saw a 200% increase in the number of orders from their members over a 12-month period. This shows how the combination of effective sustainability marketing, the option to mitigate carbon emissions per order at checkout, and loyalty points can improve sales while benefiting the planet. Read more about how to launch a green loyalty program.

Simbly

As a sustainable furniture company, Simbly came to EcoCart looking to go beyond its current sustainability practices and really focus on its carbon footprint. To align with its sustainability strategy and target audience, we decided to offset emissions for all orders to work towards climate-friendly practices. As a result, it saw a 38% lift in AOV and an overwhelmingly positive response from its customers. There’s no doubt that EcoCart’s climate contribution widget elevated Simbly and helped it garner loyal, happy customers.

Nuzest

One of the biggest challenges of ecommerce companies is cart conversion. Nuzest, a sustainable protein powder company, found a solution with EcoCart. After offering the option to reduce the carbon footprint of their orders as part of its sustainability efforts and to reduce its carbon footprint overall, Nuzest saw a 22% increase in cart conversion rates. On top of this, they saw more customers come directly to its site to make purchases, even though Amazon offered better prices. Its owners received plenty of positive feedback from its customers regarding the option to invest in climate impact projects at checkout, and it expects business to grow after reaching out to a more eco-conscious customer base.

Conclusion

Sustainability software is an essential tool of modern business. Not only does it allow you to track and measure your environmental footprint so that you can achieve your ESG goals, but it also provides critical metrics so that you can enjoy cost savings, become more efficient, remain compliant with ESG legislation, and more.

EcoCart offers sustainability software specifically designed to help ecommerce companies manage their carbon footprint and make more sales. Our offerings directly result in improved AOV, cart conversion, and brand reputation. If we can achieve all of that while helping the environment, what more can you ask for?

If you’re looking to take responsibility for your carbon footprint and improve sales, reach out to our team for a demo today.