Entering today’s complex world of sustainability management and reporting comes with a steep learning curve. Unfortunately, companies that want to make sustainability progress often lack an effective roadmap. But a strategic organizational methodology is necessary for accessing the full benefits of a sustainability strategy and non-financial reporting.
There are many sustainability reporting and management software products available, making it hard to compare them. That’s why we reviewed a list of sixteen related Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) software products and compared them with our own. Scroll down to find the full comparison chart.
How Staarsoft® Sustainability Software compares to other products
Our analysis and customer experience reveals that the other CSR software products available are often useful for tracking sustainability metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as greenhouse gas emissions, energy use or community initiatives and donations. Alternatively, they may address a specific issue within sustainability, such as supply chain, without providing insight into the other key areas.
The function of most of these software products is to collect and store data, while providing a data visualization interface to produce graphs and reports illustrating trends and individual metric performance.
Unlike Staarsoft®, however, they do not guide an organization through the process of developing and implementing an overarching sustainability strategy.
Our software solves the problem of bringing your organization and its non-financial data together in one intuitive platform. It replaces the complex Excel data management organizations often resort to. Essentially, it offers the same guidance you’d receive from a sustainability consultant, but with greater coverage and accessibility and at a much lower cost.
Though there may be some overlap between them, Staarsoft®’s functionality should be viewed as a complement rather than a competitor to these other products.
Staarsoft® Guidance and Tools: An Overview
Staarsoft® Software follows four stages–Plan, Do, Check and Act (PDCA) — which are broken down into a thirteen step cycle of improvement.
Our PDCA sustainability management approach applies to all metrics identified within the sustainability criteria of Environment, Operating Practices, Products and Services, and Community.
With its strategic planning capabilities, Staarsoft® powers organizations to meet higher standards with regard to the core sustainability principles: Accountability, Compliance, Ethical Behavior, Stakeholder Interest and Transparency.
Here are the thirteen PDCA steps:
Our Sustainability Management and Reporting System offers Comprehensive Guidance
Not only does our software ensure you cover the necessary steps for sustainability reporting, supply chain management, risk management and safety compliance, it gives you a clear, intuitive roadmap to ensure continual improvement.
Staarsoft® consistently, holistically and universally applies this streamlined PDCA process across an organization’s sustainability activities. This way, the impact of each individual process on the entire sustainability strategy remains easy to track and strengthens the process with each PDCA continual improvement cycle completed.
Unlike a module approach to individual metrics or principles, the Staarsoft® sustainability management approach gives you a way to monitor the intersections and interconnections within your strategy.
Unique features of Staarsoft® sustainability software
Here are some of the ways you can use our CSR software to improve your sustainability performance:
Define and Implement Impactful Projects and Goals
- Define projects and objectives using SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timed).
- Manage the scope of your project and launch projects at the corporate, division, regional and/or local, facility levels.
- Align your metrics with globally recognized KPIs such as the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and reporting frameworks such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
- Track the timeline and status of each sustainability action and how it contributes to the overall performance of your individual projects and overall strategy
Track, Monitor and Report on Sustainability Performance
- Access realtime sustainability data, performance, actions and responsibilities across the entire organization.
- Generate immediate insights into sustainability performance, risk mitigation, and priorities.
- Benchmark your sustainability performance on a scale from Level B (beginner) to Level AAA (leadership).
- Report on the process driving your choice to pursue a particular sustainability objective.
Share Sustainability Progress and Insights with Stakeholders
- Demonstrate how your organization’s materiality is determined as required by reporting frameworks such as GRI, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and others.
- Disclose how your organization achieved its sustainability performance, consistent with rising requirements of many reporting frameworks such as GRI, SASB, etc.
- Link to and analyze information while making it digestible for the organization in a way that can influence the entire value chain.
Engage Others with Your Sustainability Strategy
- Assign project roles and timelines.
- Improve accountability and transparency.
- Address stakeholder interests.
- Demonstrate ethical behavior and compliance.
Remember, Staarsoft® is complementary to existing tools and softwares within an organization that focus on specific issues, as shown in our graph below. You can use Staarsoft® to continually improve sustainability performance over time.
Contact us for more information on our sustainability approach, our consulting process, or for a demo of our Staarsoft® software.
