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If you’re using Novisto to track your carbon emissions and do ESG reporting, it might be a good time to consider alternatives. While many users agree that it helps them move away from manual processes, there’s also strong consensus around its poor user experience, product gaps, and a complex setup.
And when you’re choosing the best tool to remain compliant in the increasingly stressful ESG regulations space, finding the best fit is crucial.
We’re here for you with research around the best Novisto alternatives and user reviews showing what people like and dislike about them.
Why consider a Novisto alternative?
Novisto is sustainability management software that gives you insights into your sustainability data, helps with ESG reporting and relevant workflows.
Happy users often mention customer support as one of the standouts they enjoy, and when it comes to frustrations – the product is usually the one to take a hit.
Here are some of the main reasons people go looking for tools like Novisto:
- Poor user experience. Among other things, users mention ‘difficulty importing some data fields’, which makes their experience with the tool somewhat chaotic.
- Complex setup. If you’re looking for an intuitive tool, Novisto might be frustrating because of some lose ends in the functionality setup: ‘Exporting data for example has been a bit clunky of a process and less tech-savvy users sometimes find submitting data not totally intuitive.’
- Difficult navigation & bulky UI. ESG reporting is complex as it is so users feel unhappy when their software adds to the problem instead of removing it: ‘Navigating through certain sections may not be as intuitive as desired, potentially impacting the user experience.’
- Implementation difficulties. Some users mention that ‘initial integration was a bit finicky’ for them.
- Product gaps. There are still some key features that you might find are missing in this tool as users mention that ‘the platform is still maturing and may not have absolutely every type of functionality a client might want’.
Best Novisto alternatives and their unique points + user reviews (G2 & Capterra)
There are lots of Novisto competitors you could investigate. They are generally all good but there are certainly differences in price, onboarding experiences to expect, product maturity, and other factors that might be essential in your ESG journey.
But wherever you’re coming from, here are the best Novisto alternatives to start your search.
1. ESG Flo – Best Novisto alternative and a leader in auditable carbon tracking and ESG reporting
ESG Flo is a sustainability data platform built for seamless ESG reporting and auditable carbon tracking. It helps you keep up with all the updates in reporting regulations and stay compliant without any hassles.
With its data collection suite, the tool collects your Scope 1,2, and 3 emissions, does emission calculations, extracts qualitative data, provides pre-built surveys, and gives you access to a comprehensive Supplier Portal.
With its compliance suite, this software provides actionable reporting frameworks templates, auto-fills your disclosure questions, ensures cross-framework data sharing, and provides a collaborative system for messaging and task management.
On top of that, there are add-on services you can count on like gap assessment, double materiality assessment, decarbonization strategy building, lifecycle assessment, etc.
In fact, ESG Flo builds this system of records around your business where you can upload your data once and generate just about any report you need to ensure compliance. And here’s the best part: ESG Flo will soon release a free version of their tool so you can see and try it before committing to a plan.
Compared to Novisto, ESG Flo can support you with a lot more needs, such as advance carbon emissions tracking, data extraction and anomaly flagging, EPD extraction and qualitative data automation, a Supplier Portal, etc.
Here is a more detailed breakdown of how the two tools differ.
Amy Vernon, Director of Sustainability, ESG and Global Product Compliance at La-Z-Boy shared her take on the tool:
“ESG Flo’s mass-based approach and Scope 3 proprietary model for emission calculations is a game-changer. It is much more accurate than our internal solution and is making our total emission calculations substantially more precise.”
2. Workiva – Novisto competitor that bring financials into the game
Workiva is an all-in-one platform that helps you with ESG, audit, financial management, and reporting. It brings departments together and unifies information within one system. If you need to comply with regulations like CSRD, the tool will make that experience much smoother for you.
As such, Workiva stands for a portfolio of tools, which is one of its strongest points but also a major weakness as it makes this software very costly.
For long-time users, Workiva is all about simplified reporting and efficiency:
‘Workiva is user friendly and has simple yet elegant solutions. It simplifies our reporting process and creates efficiencies.’
However, many people also point out that the system is slow, overloaded, and can get glitchy which will slow down your processes at the worst moments:
‘Workiva tends to be pretty glitchy, especially during the times when it's being heavily used by other clients, which is when we need it to perform the most (i.e. during quarter end busy seasons).’
💡Related: 5 best Workiva alternatives to try for all things ESG management
3. AuditBoard – Novisto alternative with extra risk management
AuditBoard is an ESG tool with a particular focus on compliance and risk management. It helps you develop different ESG programs, uncover business risks, and audit your data. On the risks side specifically, the software will help you see if you have some vendor or IT risks and automate compliance for you.
Users like AuditBoard because of its great support team and product customization:
‘One of the best things about AuditBoard is the customization coupled with the timely customer support to help your team achieve their objectives.’
However, you also need to expect some challenges in use and product navigation:
‘It is not intuitive and takes a long time to figure out how to use. It often does not save work properly. Also, storing, organizing, and referencing any files, folders, documents or linking to other audits, work steps and documents is all much more complicated than it has to be.’
4. Plan A – Novisto alternative to double down on carbon management
Plan A might be particularly interesting for companies that seek to decarbonize their processes. As such, this tool is a carbon tracker and ESG reporting software that will help you pull your ESG data together and automate reporting.
It follows the widely known roadmap most ESG platforms give you: you get support in collecting your ESG data, measuring your carbon footprint, and standardizing overall ESG reporting efforts.
You can count on working with frameworks like GRI, SASB, TCFD and many customizable templates so your data becomes audit ready.
5. Workday – Novisto alternative to focus on the social impact
Workday, just like Workiva, is an all-in platform that has a specific focus on your human resources and the ’S’ aka ’Social’ in the ESG corner.
It helps you with human capital management and reporting so things like HR, benefits, payroll, and employee data become much easier to work with.
For many users, Workday is a great solution for remaining agile and competitive:
‘It allows organizations to easily adjust their plans and forecasts in real-time to adapt to changing business conditions, which is crucial for staying agile and competitive.’
At the same time, frustrated users share their challenges in the daily use of the platform:
‘Workday is clunky, terrible UI/UX, impossible to find the simplest things, nothing is intuitive.’
💡More tool alternatives: The 12 best ESG software platforms for 2024 + why you need to invest
Your plan of action with Novisto alternatives
Once you single out the tools that make the best match with your use cases and check off all the boxes in your list of must-haves, get a deep dive with each one of them where you request a quote, see a demo, and maybe even get to try the tool before singing on the dotted line.
ESG Flo is set to unlock a free trial of the tool so be sure to book your demo so you can see how it can revolutionize your ESG efforts!
