Sustainly Boosts Business ESG Transparency with Smart Reporting Solutions

Copenhagen-based climate technology startup Sustainly has emerged as a significant player in the rapidly expanding life cycle assessment software market, offering businesses a streamlined approach to environmental data management at a time when regulatory pressure on corporate sustainability reporting has never been greater. Founded in 2023 by Frederik Denning and Vladimirs Mihnovics, the company addresses a critical challenge facing small and medium-sized enterprises: transforming complex sustainability metrics into actionable insights without requiring extensive technical expertise or substantial financial investment.

The platform comes at an opportune moment for European businesses. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which took effect in 2024, has significantly expanded the scope of companies required to disclose detailed environmental, social and governance data. While large corporations with over 500 employees began reporting in 2025, the directive will eventually encompass approximately 50,000 companies across Europe, including many SMEs that have traditionally lacked the resources to manage comprehensive sustainability programmes. Although recent legislative proposals may delay some reporting timelines, the fundamental requirement for transparent ESG data remains unchanged.

Sustainly secured $162,000 in pre-seed funding from Antler in June 2023, marking the beginning of its expansion beyond the venture capital firm’s Copenhagen cohort programme. The investment enabled the company to develop its core platform and begin onboarding customers ranging from 40 to 4,000 employees. The company’s value proposition centres on eliminating the improvised spreadsheet systems that many sustainability managers currently rely upon, replacing them with secure, organised data collection tied directly to strategic goals.

At the heart of the platform lies what the company describes as access to more than 51,000 emission factors, providing users with one of the strongest datasets globally for climate accounting according to Sustainly. This extensive database enables businesses to calculate their carbon footprint across scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions without requiring deep technical knowledge of life cycle assessment methodologies. The software automatically calculates progress towards sustainability goals based on baseline data, yearly targets and reported metrics, offering real-time visibility into environmental performance.

The global life cycle assessment software market, valued at approximately $230m in 2024, is projected to reach $695m by 2032, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 15%. This expansion reflects mounting pressure from both regulatory bodies and consumers for greater environmental transparency. SMEs, which represent a substantial portion of this emerging market, face particular challenges in implementing LCA tools due to limited budgets and technical expertise. Sustainly positions itself as a solution specifically designed for these resource-constrained organisations.

The company’s approach differs from traditional LCA software providers by emphasising ease of use and rapid deployment. Users can reportedly begin collecting and analysing data within five minutes of signing up, a stark contrast to enterprise solutions that often require months of implementation and consultant support. This accessibility extends to the platform’s dynamic reporting features, which replace static PDF sustainability reports with interactive, continuously updated dashboards that stakeholders can access in real time.

Sustainly has developed strategic partnerships spanning various sectors, though specific details of these collaborations remain limited. The company’s client portfolio demonstrates its versatility, serving organisations ranging from energy companies like NRGi and Vandcenter Syd to research institutions such as DTU Biosustain. This diverse customer base suggests the platform’s applicability across different industries facing varying sustainability challenges.

The platform addresses several pain points that sustainability professionals commonly encounter. Rather than relying on manual data collection through email, phone calls or informal conversations, Sustainly enables distributed data collection where different departments or locations can input relevant information directly. The system then organises this data according to the organisation’s strategic priorities, whether aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, specific environmental scopes or custom frameworks.

For businesses operating across multiple locations, departments or subsidiaries, Sustainly offers tagging and filtering capabilities that enable comparative analysis. This functionality allows companies to identify which operations consume excessive energy, generate unnecessary waste or demonstrate inefficient logistics, translating environmental metrics into operational insights that can drive cost savings alongside sustainability improvements. The company argues that organisations optimising solely based on financial metrics miss significant opportunities for improvement visible through environmental data.

Beyond carbon accounting, Sustainly incorporates broader sustainability metrics including water consumption, waste generation and diversity indicators. This comprehensive approach aligns with the double materiality concept embedded in the CSRD, which requires companies to report both how sustainability issues affect their business and how their operations impact people and the environment. By tracking multiple sustainability dimensions simultaneously, organisations can develop more holistic strategies that address interconnected environmental and social challenges.

The platform’s emphasis on collaboration reflects a recognition that sustainability transformation cannot succeed as a siloed function. Rather than positioning ESG management as the exclusive domain of sustainability officers, Sustainly enables company-wide participation in data collection and goal setting. This distributed approach aims to embed sustainability considerations throughout organisational decision-making processes, from procurement to product design.

As regulatory requirements continue tightening and stakeholder expectations for environmental accountability intensify, platforms like Sustainly represent an emerging category of technology designed to democratise sustainability management. By lowering technical and financial barriers to comprehensive environmental reporting, the company targets a market segment that incumbent enterprise software providers have historically overlooked: the thousands of mid-sized organisations that lack dedicated sustainability teams but face mounting pressure to demonstrate environmental responsibility.

The company’s trajectory illustrates broader trends in climate technology, where the focus has shifted from simply measuring environmental impact to enabling practical action on sustainability goals. For Sustainly, success will depend on its ability to maintain simplicity while expanding functionality, balancing accessibility for non-technical users with the rigorous data requirements of increasingly complex reporting standards. As Europe’s sustainability reporting regime matures and potentially influences global standards, tools that bridge the gap between regulatory compliance and genuine operational improvement will likely play an increasingly central role in corporate environmental strategy.