Q Insights #016

Q Insights is brought to you by

This week’s read time: 5 minutes

Welcome to this edition of Q Insights — our bi-weekly newsletter for sustainability and ESG professionals looking to make smarter solution decisions.

Each edition brings you concise, relevant updates on the tools, trends, and technologies driving the sustainable transition. We filter the noise, highlight what matters, and help you navigate the sustainability solution landscape with clarity and confidence.

In this edition, we’ll cover: 

• Q Intelligence: The Rise of Advisory-Backed Saas 📊

• Q Interview: How AreaHub turns environmental risk into decision-ready intelligence (An interview with Alison Gregory, Co-Founder & CEO of AreaHub) 💬

• Q Signals: Metrikflow raised €565K, beSirius launched a new guide, and other news 🗞️

• KanataQ Corner: Newly Listed Providers on KanataQ & Our KEPs interviews ✅

• and other insights 💡

Q INTELLIGENCE

After reviewing hundreds of pages of buyer interviews, market activity, and proprietary data on KanataQ, one pattern is becoming clearer in real purchasing decisions:

Many buyers now prefer a mix of software, structured methodology, and access to expert support.

This does not mean software-only or advisory-only models are becoming less relevant. Both continue to serve clear needs. What is changing is the number of buyers who want a vendor that helps them both automate and interpret sustainability work.

What the data shows

Across the 400+ providers listed on KanataQ:

• 74% are software-first

• 18% combine software with advisory services

• 8% are advisory-led

That 18% hybrid segment continues to grow in CSRD readiness, LCA, carbon management, and risk assessment categories, where teams often need automation plus guidance to meet audit and internal review requirements.

What buyers consistently told us

Across real procurement processes:

• They want tools that non-experts in finance, legal, and operations can use

• They prefer clear templates, explanations, and support to interpret outputs

• They look for vendors who can help justify numbers during audit and assurance

• They value partners who reduce internal back-and-forth and speed up validation

One buyer put it clearly:

“We want software that moves fast, but also expertise that helps us stand behind the results.”

Why this matters

The shift toward advisory-backed SaaS is not about replacing existing models. It reflects how complex sustainability reporting, assurance, and data governance have become.

A combined model helps teams:

• reach audit-ready quality faster

• reduce friction between departments

• translate automation into real outcomes

At KanataQ, we track these patterns across marketplace activity and search behavior as part of our Market Intelligence Platform, giving buyers and providers a clearer view of how the sustainability landscape is evolving.

👉 Explore the landscape: kanataq.com

Q INTERVIEW

This week’s guest:

Alison Gregory

Co-Founder & CEO of AreaHub

Can you tell us what AreaHub does and how it helps companies?

AreaHub’s environmental intelligence+™ drives companies’ assessments of climate risks and other important area considerations. We inform investments, equip intelligent planning, and more with our easy-to-use platform and in-depth reports, saving clients money and minimizing disruptions. 

We deliver critical data, with clear and actionable insights into the changing environmental conditions and other area factors - such as extreme weather, infrastructure, and demographics - affecting businesses today. In a world of fast-changing environmental conditions, data about place can often be fragmented, inconsistent, and outdated; AreaHub was created to close that information gap and make environmental risk visible, extensive, and usable.

In addition to AreaHub’s extensive data coverage, our platform stands out for our clear visuals and content, ongoing transparency, and intuitive navigability. We provide answers companies and consultants need, whether that is efficient access to critical details, a multi-dimensional view of their areas, or information to understand potential impacts, including with second or third order effects. 

How is your data sourced, verified, and turned into decision-ready insights?

AreaHub’s extensive and robust platform, with our patented technology and proprietary algorithms, aggregates, validates, and scores and ranks data from the best available information sources, which may include government agencies, third-party licensors, reporting services, and others to produce our environmental intelligence+™. 

AreaHub has brought together data scientists, top academics, and experienced executives, including people who translate complex information into decision-ready insights. To empower businesses for the environmental risks they may face, our great team developed our popular reports, utilizing their deep expertise in their fields. 

Using our aggregated and predictive data and platform, we provide clients with valuable insights and predictive reports with in-depth projections about key factors critical for long-term investment decisions, resiliency planning, and critical building improvements.

Who typically uses AreaHub’s solutions today? And what kind of impact are your customers seeing in practice?

The impact our customers realize from using AreaHub’s environmental intelligence+™ is immense. AreaHub is a critical resource for any company with real estate exposure. Our data and insights inform decisions that can save millions of dollars and protect business interests across the commercial real estate, infrastructure, insurance, municipalities, and consulting sectors.

Beyond saving money, AreaHub enables clients to minimize disruption risk, such as when informing the building or improving resiliency plans that help maximize ROI and improve operational continuity. Reports estimate that each $1 invested in resiliency planning can yield up to 30X in savings over the next decade.

Recent client examples include our work with a consulting firm that assessed a major U.S. city and then produced the city’s resiliency plan, and a large commercial real estate client that utilized AreaHub’s climate-risk scope and other insights for their multi-million dollar acquisition transaction.

Finally, what’s next for AreaHub, technologically or strategically?

We are focused on expanding our reach so that more businesses can benefit from AreaHub’s extraordinary breadth, clarity, and monitoring options for their profitability and resiliency. 

In addition, one of AreaHub’s next technological priorities, given our experience developing AI tools, is to develop additional AI solutions for improved client experience beyond our existing AI feature offering. 

In general, as our clients’ interests and needs evolve, we are expanding our environmental intelligence+™ platform in line with AreaHub’s mission to inform and support our clients' as their area risks become more intense and disruptive.

Q SIGNALS

Latest developments, insights, and trends

📊 New tools, features, acquisitions, and funding rounds from solution providers

Metrikflow (KanataQ listed) raised €565K in pre-seed funding and launched its AI-powered “Operating System for ESG Compliance,” a platform that automates carbon accounting, ESG reporting, LCAs, and supplier evaluations for industrial companies. The startup supports end-to-end sustainability workflows - from Scope 1–3 calculations to CSRD/IFRS-aligned disclosures and AI-generated reduction insights. (link)

beSirius (KanataQ listed) released a new guide offering a practical overview of the CMRT, EMRT, and AMRT templates, outlining the preparation process, the key challenges companies typically face, and how automation can improve accuracy while reducing manual work. Developed by the Responsible Minerals Initiative under the Responsible Business Alliance, these templates are widely used across minerals supply chains, providing a common structure for responsible-sourcing disclosures. (link)

KANATAQ CORNER

What’s new on KanataQ?

📈 KanataQ Growing Family

Here is the list of providers that joined KanataQ since our last edition: CHS (Strategic Advisory Services), Climatta (Digital Solutions & Analytics), Emission Core (Climate Action), ESG Partners (Strategic Advisory Services), GreenStitch.io (Digital Solutions & Analytics), Impacti (Climate Action), and newOS - Breeze (Digital Solutions & Analytics).

💭 KanataQ Ecosystem Partners Interviews

Green Digest interviewed two of our KEPs, who shared their perspectives on the current state of sustainable investing and corporate sustainability.

You can read the interviews here:

• Michael Viehs

• Sebastian Davila

Come join us

Are you a sustainability solution provider? Join KanataQ, the platform where sustainability solution providers connect with high-intent buyers. Generate quality leads, gain market insights, and maximize ROI with our commission-free model. List with us today or contact us at [email protected] for inquiries.

PRESENTED BY GREEN DIGEST

Join +5,500 sustainability professionals who read Green Digest every week

Green Digest is a weekly newsletter for ESG and sustainability professionals, delivering key updates, insights, and analyses. Every Tuesday, we break down the biggest developments across sustainability, climate, regulation, sustainable finance, and more—curated from trusted sources. Fridays alternate between our Interview Series with CSOs and leaders shaping the field, and our Impact Briefs—data-driven analyses of companies’ environmental and social performance.

Subscribe for free and join +5,500 readers from companies like Moody’s, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and more.