Your platform works. Buyers need a clearer reason to choose it.

You’ve built software that solves real sustainability challenges. But getting the right companies to notice, understand the difference, and commit takes more than a good demo.

We help ESG software companies sharpen their positioning, find buyers with a reason to act, and build a repeatable business-development process around those opportunities.

A product manager and an analyst reviewing a sustainability analytics dashboard
A growing market doesn’t automatically mean a growing pipeline.

According to IDC, worldwide sustainability and ESG software market is projected to grow from $5.98 billion in 2024 to $12.36 billion by 2029—a compound annual growth rate of 15.6%.

More than 500 vendors compete in that market, spanning greenhouse gas accounting, regulatory disclosure, supply-chain emissions tracking, and decarbonization planning.

That’s a substantial opportunity. It’s also a difficult environment in which to explain why your platform deserves a closer look.

You need more than visibility. You need buyers to recognize that you understand their situation—and that your platform is a strong fit for what they need to accomplish.

$5.98B
2024
$12.36B
2029
15.6% compound annual growth rate, IDC
You shouldn’t have to teach your growth partner the sustainability market.

I built one of the early sustainability consulting firms in 2006. I’ve watched the market ebb, flow, and mature—and seen how much work it takes to turn interest in sustainability into a funded engagement.

That experience shapes how we work with ESG software companies. We bring sustainability-sector understanding to the commercial work: identifying your best-fit buyers, making your value clear, and finding a relevant reason to start the conversation.

You bring the depth of your product. We help connect it to the people and business needs that can support a sale.

Heather Burns
Founder, Upside ESG
Stop making buyers work out why you’re different.

Better data. Easier reporting. Less time in spreadsheets.

Those benefits may be real, but they don’t explain why a buyer should choose your platform over another—or change what they’re doing today.

We help you get specific about who your platform serves best, what it helps them accomplish, and why solving the problem is worth the cost and effort of changing.

The result is positioning your team can use in outreach, sales conversations, demos, and proposals—not just a new headline on your website.

Spend less time chasing fit. Find companies with a reason to act.

A company can match your ideal customer profile and still have no intention of buying.

We help you look beyond company size and sector to the circumstances that could create a real opening: a reporting deadline, a customer data request, a new sustainability leader, or a known contract renewal.

Then we connect that context to what your platform does best.

Your team gets a clearer view of which accounts deserve attention, what needs validating, and how to approach them with something more useful than a generic demo invitation.

Give your champion a case they can carry internally.

An enthusiastic sustainability lead is a valuable start. Your sales process also needs to address the questions that could hold up a decision.

What will finance need to justify the investment? What will IT need to assess integration and security? What will operations need to understand about the work involved?

We help you prepare messaging and sales materials around those questions, so your champion isn’t left translating your pitch for everyone else.

A clearer business case. Better preparation for objections. Fewer unanswered questions late in the process.

Make business development repeatable—not another scramble for leads.

You don’t need more disconnected account lists, research documents, and outreach experiments.

You need a process your team can use: identify relevant accounts, validate the opportunity, understand the people involved, prepare a useful approach, and follow through.

We build that process around your platform and how you sell, using AI to support research and preparation while keeping your team’s judgment at the center.

If you sell through consultants or implementation partners, we build their role into the approach too.

Start with the gap that’s holding you back.
Know where to focus

Get a clearer view of the companies that fit your platform, the circumstances that could create demand, and the buyers you need to reach—so your team knows where to spend its time.

Build your custom PennyOS

Bring account research, buyer signals, outreach preparation, and follow-through into an AI-enabled business-development system built around your platform and your sales process.

Equip your team

Help your sales and partner teams explain your value in the buyer’s terms, recognize relevant opportunities, and prepare for the people involved in the decision.

FAQ
We already have a sales team. What would you add?

We work alongside your team on the sustainability-specific questions behind the sale: which accounts have a relevant need, where the budget may sit, who influences the decision and what makes your software worth prioritizing. We turn that work into positioning, account intelligence and sales preparation your team can use.

Buyers understand what our software does. How do we give them a reason to act?

We help distinguish interest in your features from a reason to make a purchase. That means identifying the problem a buyer needs to solve, what their current approach is costing them and what would justify a change. The result is a case for prioritizing your software—not simply a clearer description of it.

How do you identify accounts worth pursuing?

We look at fit and timing together. Company size and sector help establish fit; account-specific developments can suggest why a conversation may be relevant now. Those might include a customer data request, a change in reporting responsibilities or a contract renewal, where that information is available. A signal informs a hypothesis—it doesn’t prove someone is ready to buy.

We sell through consultants or implementation partners. Can you support that?

Yes. We can build the partner’s role into your go-to-market approach: which opportunities they are well placed to identify, how your software complements their services and what they need to explain its value. We can also help prepare or train partners for those conversations.

Where would we start?

The Buyer Intelligence Brief helps clarify your best-fit accounts, the people involved in the purchase and the reasons your software may become a priority. If your main challenge is already clear—such as differentiation or partner-led growth—we can recommend a more focused engagement.

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