Global sustainability rules continue to expand. New disclosure standards, growing investor expectations, and more frequent regulatory updates have prompted organizations to seek faster, deeper, and more reliable ESG support. ESG advisory firms are feeling this shift the most. They are seeing new requirements under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) Standards, California’s climate laws, and emerging mandatory climate risk reviews in financial services. Many sectors now face heightened scrutiny, particularly financial institutions, mining, and real estate, where climate factors play a clear role in valuation and risk.
At the same time, companies now expect more strategic value from their advisors (even if they don’t implement it!). They want clear materiality insights, stronger benchmarking, and guidance on how climate and sustainability trends affect investment decisions and long-term resilience. Investors are asking more direct questions about transition plans, emissions trajectories, and risk governance. Meeting these expectations requires speed, consistency, and analytical rigour that can be difficult to maintain with traditional tools and manual workflows. This widening gap has pushed many ESG consultants to explore AI as a way to scale their work and deliver deeper value.
Why traditional advisory models fall short
Most ESG consultants and advisory teams rely on a mix of documents, spreadsheets, and shared drives to gather and review sustainability information. They pull data from annual reports, policies, regulatory filings, climate disclosures, external research sources, and third-party ratings. All of this information needs to be sorted, read, and verified before analysis can begin. The sheer volume creates bottlenecks and increases the risk of inconsistencies that ripple through an engagement. For example, spreadsheet formulas or even file versions can change or be swapped out over time. Very often, two team members will interpret the same disclosure differently. And everyone on the team keeps notes across different folders or drive structures, which, while a problem for almost every workforce, is a serious problem for ESG data collection and analysis.
These challenges multiply when firms serve many clients at once. Advisory teams move quickly, often with tight deadlines, yet they are still expected to deliver consistent outputs across engagements. Keeping templates updated as standards evolve is another challenge, especially when ISSB or CSRD guidance changes mid-project. Manual processes slow everything down and make it harder for teams to deliver the level of analytical quality clients now expect.
The nature of ESG advisory services is also changing. Although many companies initially sought out ESG advisors for compliance purposes, today, many companies want to go above and beyond. They’re looking for broader insights; they want to understand which ESG themes are materially relevant to their sector, where they stand relative to peers, and how sustainability trends shape operational, supply chain, and financial decisions. A client might ask how a proposed climate law affects capital allocation or whether their governance structure is strong enough to oversee transition plans. These are strategic questions that require more time and more reliable data than manual processes can support.
The role of AI in scaling ESG advisory services
AI helps advisors reshape how they gather, review, and interpret ESG information. Instead of spending hours searching through documents, ESG consultants can draw on tools that surface relevant disclosures, align them to reporting standards, and highlight gaps in a fraction of the time. This creates a more reliable starting point for analysis and frees advisors to focus on the recommendations that clients value most.
A frequent misconception is that AI replaces advisory judgment. In practice, it supports it by handling repetitive work and organizing large volumes of information (what some might call automation). Strategic recommendations, risk assessments, and materiality decisions still require human judgment, sector context, and an understanding of client priorities. AI simply accelerates the steps that lead to those insights.
The technology can also bring consistency to distributed or hybrid advisory teams. When multiple team members contribute to a project, AI helps standardize the underlying analysis so the final output reflects a shared methodology. As adoption increases, AI will continue to shift the balance of work toward higher-value insight, scenario thinking, and client strategy.
Automating ESG data collection and analysis
Advisors spend a large share of every project gathering information before analysis can begin. Research from the International Federation of Accountants shows that sustainability reporting can involve more than 200 unique data points across dispersed systems and documents.
This level of complexity makes manual review slow and difficult to scale. AI reduces that burden by scanning and extracting relevant content instantly from climate reports, regulatory filings, governance documents, transition plans, and annual reports. This eliminates many of the delays caused by manual searches and lowers the chance of overlooking important disclosures.
Automation can also help to ensure completeness. AI tools can identify details that might be missed in manual reviews, such as climate scenario references embedded deep in a report or governance disclosures split across multiple documents. Manifest Climate helps centralize this information so ESG advisory teams can begin their analysis with clear and consistent inputs.
Turning data into actionable insights
Advisory work depends on translating large amounts of information into clear decisions. AI supports this by identifying patterns, surfacing peer comparisons, and revealing disclosure gaps that matter for strategy. ESG consultants can quickly see where clients fall short of industry expectations and where they have opportunities to strengthen their climate planning or sustainability governance.
For example, an advisor might use AI insights to show a client that their governance disclosures lag behind peers or that their transition plan lacks sector-specific detail. AI can also help advisors prioritize material issues and identify which risks should be escalated for scenario analysis. With this stronger foundation, advisors can move conversations toward long-term direction and resilience. Manifest Climate supports this shift by linking disclosures to reporting standards, peer practices, and climate-related risks.
Enhancing client consistency and capacity
Scaling ESG advisory services requires consistent outputs across teams and engagements. AI helps by applying structured logic to assessments and reducing the small discrepancies that can occur during manual analysis. Advisors can produce more reliable, comparable results across clients, which strengthens trust and supports long-term planning.
AI also increases capacity. Routine analysis can be completed quickly, which gives advisors more time to provide interpretation, stakeholder guidance, and strategic recommendations. This allows firms to take on more clients while sustaining depth and quality. It also helps teams grow their services without overextending staff.
How to use AI to scale ESG advisory services
Firms that want to integrate AI into ESG advisory work do not need to redesign their entire workflow. Starting with one or two steps helps build familiarity and shows how automation supports better outcomes.
A practical first step is consolidating ESG data in one place. Many teams spend hours collecting documents before any analysis begins. AI tools that automate this step shorten the timeline and improve consistency across engagements.
Another step is automating a recurring task, such as extracting climate-related disclosures or reviewing governance structures. This makes the benefits of AI immediately visible. A simple use case might involve onboarding a new client. AI can gather and categorize disclosures, scan them for alignment with ISSB or CSRD requirements, and generate a preliminary gap summary in minutes. The advisor can then build the narrative and strategic insight on top of this foundation.
Training also matters. Teams should understand how tools work, which outputs require verification, and how AI fits into the advisory workflow. This helps build confidence across the team and encourages consistent use.
Many advisory firms also partner with technology providers to accelerate adoption. Platforms like Manifest Climate offer tools already designed for ESG advisory practices, which reduces implementation time and eliminates the need to design in-house solutions.
How Manifest Climate empowers scalable ESG advisory
Manifest Climate strengthens ESG advisory services by automating analysis and surfacing insights that support faster and more strategic decision-making. The platform reviews sustainability documents, aligns disclosures with ISSB, TCFD, and CSRD expectations, and highlights areas for improvement. Advisors gain a clear foundation for risk assessments, materiality work, and forward-looking guidance.
The platform also helps teams build a repeatable advisory methodology. Automated benchmarking, structured disclosure reviews, and standardised gap identification make it easier to deliver consistent results across large client portfolios. Advisory firms can use Manifest Climate to create templates, apply the same approach across engagements, and scale their analysis without losing depth. Many tasks that previously took hours can now be completed in minutes with an AI-supported workflow.
By improving speed, depth, and consistency, Manifest Climate helps firms differentiate their ESG advisory offerings. Faster turnaround, richer analysis, and more reliable outputs strengthen client relationships and help firms position themselves as strategic partners in a fast-moving regulatory environment.
Grow ESG advisory services with Manifest Climate
The future of ESG advisory depends on delivering fast, accurate, and strategic insights that help clients navigate expanding sustainability expectations. AI gives advisory teams the tools to scale their work and deepen their impact. It increases capacity, strengthens consistency, and supports the shift from compliance tasks to strategic guidance.
Manifest Climate believes that AI is a critical part of this future. It helps firms serve more clients, work more efficiently, and deliver insights that support resilient and sustainable decision-making. Firms that move early will have an advantage in speed, quality, and client satisfaction.
To see how AI can strengthen your advisory services, book a demo.
