NASDAQ Sustainable Lens has become a go-to tool for organizations aiming to enhance their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting. It helps teams benchmark disclosures, monitor risks, and stay aligned with shifting regulations.
But it doesn’t work for everyone.
Some organizations need more flexibility, whether that’s customizing how they interpret ESG data or analyze internal documents that aren’t part of public filings. Others want better traceability, more options for sharing insights internally, or tools that adapt to their unique reporting needs.
Switching to the right solution can simplify your ESG analysis and reporting, improve audit readiness, and surface insights that support smarter decisions. Below, we’ll cover what NASDAQ Sustainable Lens is, why it may fall short, and four alternatives that deliver more flexibility and control.
What is NASDAQ Sustainable Lens?
NASDAQ Sustainable Lens is an AI-powered ESG intelligence platform designed to simplify sustainability reporting and data analysis for companies and investors. It pulls from a global database of disclosures from over 9,000 companies, helping teams measure ESG performance, benchmark against peers, and assess alignment with major frameworks like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
Its key capabilities include:
- Regulatory gap analysis: Identify where ESG disclosures meet, fall short, or miss regulatory requirements to support compliance and audit readiness.
- Benchmarking and performance tracking: Compare ESG performance against peers to uncover gaps and prioritize areas for improvement.
- On-demand, data-driven insights: Instantly surface ESG insights from thousands of documents using AI-powered search and summarization for more informed decision-making.
- Streamlined reporting: Automate data extraction and formatting to create faster, accurate, and consistent sustainability reports.
- Interactive communication tools: Build digital ESG reports and dashboards that boost stakeholder engagement and transparency.
- AI assistant: With AI improving ESG compliance and reporting, the assistant lets you ask ESG-related questions and get fast, AI-driven answers based on company disclosures and regulatory data.
- Private document integration: Securely upload private or public documents to inform reports.
Sustainable Lens is especially useful for users within the NASDAQ ecosystem, including investors, analysts, and sustainability officers who rely on comparable ESG data.
Why consider alternatives to Sustainable Lens?
While NASDAQ Sustainable Lens delivers strong ESG insights, it may not meet the needs of every organization. Many teams require more than what a standardized, public-disclosure-only tool can deliver.
Here are a few gaps in Sustainable Lens’ offerings that organizations seek out elsewhere:
- Audit-ready transparency: Sustainable Lens summarizes public ESG disclosures, but doesn’t always link insights directly to the original source or snippet. This lack of traceability can make audit preparation and internal validation more difficult.
- Customization: The platform is largely standardized, offering little flexibility to tailor insights to specific frameworks or organizational needs.
- Data delivery and integration: Sustainable Lens works best within the NASDAQ suite and lacks seamless export or integration with tools like Power BI, Microsoft Copilot, or custom dashboards.
- Broader ESG coverage or methodologies: Some organizations require solutions that reflect evolving frameworks or offer more dynamic ESG scoring and policy alignment, which Sustainable Lens doesn’t offer.
- Enhanced regulatory support: For organizations juggling multiple frameworks, the platform lacks advanced features like regulation-specific data mapping and disclosure status tracking.
- Flexible pricing: Sustainable Lens may not offer the pricing flexibility some organizations need, especially those with fluctuating ESG workloads or smaller teams looking for more modular licensing.
For these reasons, several purpose-built ESG solutions may serve teams better depending on their goals and technical environment.
4 great alternatives to NASDAQ Sustainable Lens
If you need better document traceability, easier integrations, or better customization, here are four alternatives worth exploring:
Manifest Climate
Manifest Climate is built to simplify ESG research and compliance for consulting firms, public companies, and financial institutions. It analyzes both public disclosures and private internal documents to help you stay aligned with requirements like CSRD, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) S1 & S2, and California Senate Bill (SB) 261 while also surfacing hidden ESG risks and opportunities.
But it’s far from a general AI tool like ChatGPT. Manifest Climate’s adaptable framework and expert-developed prompts support custom reporting workflows and audit-ready insights, making it a versatile choice for organizations that want clarity, accuracy, and scalability.
See why Manifest Climate is trusted by businesses like Meta, PWC, Deloitte, and more: Book a demo today.
Key features
- Disclosure status tracking: Shows whether requirements are met, partially met, or not found, ensuring clarity in reporting.
- Private document analysis: Analyzes internal documents alongside public disclosures for a comprehensive ESG performance view.
- Flexible data delivery: Shares insights via in-platform dashboards, CSV exports, PowerBI integration, Microsoft Copilot, or in-house tools, enhancing workflow compatibility.
- Source-traceable proof: Links every datapoint to its original source for greater confidence during audits.
- Customizable assessments: Allows you to adjust gap analyses to fit your material topics and reporting goals.
- Real-time insights: Provides up-to-date ESG performance data, helping you keep pace with evolving regulations and trends in the ESG landscape.
Workiva
Workiva brings financial reporting, sustainability data, and audit and risk in a single, secure cloud platform, streamlined with built-in intelligence and automation. It enables ESG teams to collaborate in real time, track progress across multiple frameworks, and maintain audit-ready documentation, all within a connected reporting ecosystem.
If you’re balancing SEC disclosures, CSRD expectations, and internal sustainability goals, Workiva helps you streamline your reporting without losing sight of data integrity.
Key features
- Unified data management: Consolidates ESG and financial data for consistent, efficient reporting.
- Collaboration tools: Enables real-time collaboration across teams, improving efficiency in report preparation.
- Automated reporting: Reduces manual effort by automating data collection and sustainability reporting.
- Integration capabilities: Connects with ERP systems and other third-party tools for smooth data flow.
IBM Environmental Intelligence
IBM Environmental Intelligence is a climate risk and ESG insights platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and geospatial data sets to assess environmental impact, manage climate strategy risks, and meet sustainability goals.
For organizations with complex climate exposure, such as manufacturers, utilities, and supply chain-intensive firms, IBM offers deep environmental analytics not available in traditional ESG tools. Its value lies in combining ESG metrics with climate forecasting and AI-powered risk modeling, enabling companies to act on insights, not just report them.
Key features
- Climate and environmental risk modeling: Models potential climate-related disruptions and environmental risks with high accuracy.
- Data visualization: Visualizes ESG performance and environmental impact across global operations and supplier networks.
- AI-driven scenario analysis and forecasting: Uses generative AI to simulate future scenarios and forecast risks to guide sustainability strategies.
- Integrations with various datasets: Integrates emissions, weather, and geospatial data to enrich reporting.
- Configurable dashboards for enterprise-wide use: Customizes dashboards to deliver relevant ESG and risk insights across business units.
Sustainalytics
Sustainalytics, a Morningstar company, provides ESG research, ratings, and data to support responsible investing and compliance. It analyzes ESG performance across thousands of companies, offering insights into risks, opportunities, and compliance with standards like Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).
If you’re a financial institution or investor looking to strengthen your ESG strategy, Sustainalytics provides the tools and insights to do it. Its focus on investor-grade data and global coverage makes it suitable for portfolio analysis and stewardship strategies.
Key features
- ESG risk ratings: Evaluates risks across environmental, social, and governance factors with depth and clarity.
- Portfolio analysis: Enables investors to evaluate ESG performance within investment portfolios.
- Global data coverage: Analyzes ESG data from thousands of companies across industries and regions.
- Materiality mapping: Aligns data with what matters most for financial and reputational risk, enhancing strategic decision-making.
Simplify ESG compliance workflows with Manifest Climate
ESG compliance is complex, but the right tool can make it manageable. While NASDAQ Sustainable Lens offers robust AI-driven insights, its limitations in customization, private document analysis, and integration may not suit every organization.
Manifest Climate is a standout alternative. It gives you the flexibility to analyze both public and private ESG data, trace every datapoint to its source, and deliver insights through the tools your team already uses. For organizations that need precision, scalability, and audit-ready reporting, it checks all the boxes.
To explore how Manifest Climate can streamline your ESG workflows, schedule a demo today.
