Achieving Sustainability Goals with Bain & Company Venture

On average, sustainability teams spend 70% of their time collecting data, time that could instead be used to drive environmental impact

BOSTON—April 26, 2023—Sustainability teams spend an average of 70% of their time collecting data, time that could instead be used to drive real environmental impact. These findings are according to ESG Flo, a new venture and artificial intelligence-enabled data management solution backed by Bain & Company, that aims to help industrial and manufacturing companies better achieve their sustainability goals. ESG Flo’s capabilities allow for data that is more transparent, traceable and complete.

“ESG Flo was born out of the desire to do our part in helping solve the complex climate problems in our world,” said Patrick Obeid, founder and CEO of ESG Flo. “Our vision is clear: to provide companies with the necessary data backbone to achieve their ESG targets and make more effective cost, risk and compliance decisions. By optimizing data ingestion in an auditable platform, our pipelining solution automates and streamlines environmental data processes. Now business leaders can focus on what really matters, cutting carbon Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.”

ESG Flo is the first venture to launch out of Bain & Company’s “Founder’s Studio,” an organization that falls under Bain’s “Engine 2” business and aims to build Bain’s next generation of innovative software and data businesses based on the firm’s unique expertise. Obeid realized the need for a tool like ESG Flo after having worked on a series of environmental projects as a Bain employee.

“We believe in the power of our people,” said Ron Kermisch, head of Founder’s Studio and partner at Bain. “Our founders and their teams are selected from the top 1% of business talent in the world. We provide them with the support necessary to succeed by giving them access to Bain’s global client and alumni network paving the way for innovation. ESG Flo is an exciting inaugural example of this strategy in action.”

Data that is more traceable, transparent and complete

Research from ESG Flo shows that not only do sustainability teams across industries lose valuable time, but they often lack audit readiness. ESG Flo equips companies with the structure necessary to achieve both data efficiency and accuracy while also harnessing the power of AI. Technical capabilities include:

• Data visualization and dashboards for insightful goal setting, initiative tracking and benchmarking
• Data gap flagging, anomaly detection, error proofing and data immutability
• Dedicated auditor functionalities that provide access to facilitate feedback between auditors and data managers, and address the growing need for reasonable assurance

ESG Flo is one of several sustainability-related solutions offered through Bain & Company. Bain collaborates with best-of-breed players in the complex and dynamic sustainability environment as a way to address its clients’ needs and to deliver world class results. Bain has joined forces with these companies to support clients’ carbon transition goals with state-of-the-art digital platforms across carbon accounting, climate physical risks, carbon credit ratings and ESG ratings.  

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