Sustainability is a complex issue that presents ever greater challenges to companies. How do you implement professional CSR management? Who are the relevant stakeholders and what are the key issues? And which software responds to the requirements of a specific company?

To answer these questions and many others, Bremen-based CSR consultancy and industry analyst “brands & values” recently published its study entitled “Nachhaltigkeit managen 2.0” (managing sustainability 2.0). The study’s aim is to give companies guidelines in the fast-growing market of sustainability management software and to answer other questions about CSR performance. It also includes a more in-depth outline of the six largest vendors of specialized software.

As a part of the study, ten sustainability managers of well-known companies were asked to evaluate the solutions in categories such as positioning, software and relevance which were presented at the brands & values concluding workshop. In the positioning category, the panel gave a top mark of 7.8 based on a maximum of 10 to WeSustain. In this case the experts were asked to gauge how apparent the strengths and weaknesses of the system were. They also awarded a top score of 7.8 points for the software itself. Here they were requested to assess the solution’s degree of fulfilment vis à vis operational requirements. The final task in the relevance category was to judge the likelihood of customers working with and contacting the software suppliers. Once again WeSustain came out top here and achieved 7.9 points.