ISS-Corporate Acquires Sustainability Reporting Software Provider, Celsia: Executive Insights

ISS-Corporate, a leading provider of compensation, governance, cyber risk monitoring, and sustainability offerings to help companies improve shareholder value and reduce risk, earlier this month announced the acquisition of Celsia, an Oslo-based provider of SaaS solutions for corporate sustainability reporting. Marija Kramer and Petter Reistad outline how this strategic development will advance ISS-Corporate’s position as a holistic provider of sustainability offerings to corporates.

Petter Reistad: Celsia is an Oslo-based provider of SaaS solutions for corporate sustainability reporting in line with key sustainability disclosure regulations, specifically the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). At present, over 300 clients in Europe and North America rely on Celsia’s software solutions for accurate and timely sustainability reporting. We are excited for Celsia to join the ISS-Corporate team. Together we will help many more clients free up time to develop and implement sustainability initiatives, while ensuring their reporting is auditable and of high-quality. Our clients are the true winners in this transaction. They will get access to a menu of complementary solutions, solving their full range of ESG needs.

Marija Kramer: With this integration, companies can now rely on us to support their sustainability program holistically, from data gathering and benchmarking against peer and industry best practices, to regulatory reporting and understanding their investors’ priorities and expectations.

PR: The CSRD, which took effect January 1, is an EU regulation designed to create more transparency and accountability for businesses to act on their ESG goals. The directive requires extensive documentation of how sustainable business activities are and what companies are doing to improve. Celsia’s software solution can help companies simplify their entire CSRD reporting process with workflows designed for CSRD requirements, data collection, and automation of reporting. Celsia’s software also supports Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) reporting requirements for private equity firms, including collection of Principle Adverse Indicator (PAI) data from portfolio companies.

MK: Many companies within scope are taking stock of their data capture and reporting capabilities in order to comply with upcoming regulatory deadlines. Many of our clients have turned to us for a solution and we are delighted to now offer them one that is innovative, intuitive, and scalable.  According to professional services firm KPMG, “many organizations believe they are ahead of peers regarding sustainability reporting but almost half still use spreadsheets to manage their ESG data.”

PR: Companies utilizing Celsia experience up to 80 percent reduction in time spent on reporting compared to traditional methods, leading to substantial cost savings estimated by the EU at €320,000 annually. As we approach mid-2027, with around 50,000 EU companies required to comply with CSRD requirements, the collective reporting expenses are forecasted to reach €9.9 billion, with 10 percent of this amount expected to be directed towards SaaS providers.

MK: Celsia’s SaaS solution for CSRD reporting complements our existing services, specifically those related to Double Materiality Assessments, Carbon Accounting and advisory services focused on regulation readiness and disclosure gap analysis. We are intensifying our investment in these products, with a particular focus on enabling workflow efficiency through AI-driven data ingestion and automation technologies. Our subscribers will benefit from being at the leading edge of efficient, system-driven sustainability reporting.

MK: Across the globe, regulators and investors are pushing for enhanced sustainability reporting by companies. The EU is at the forefront of this trend, with numerous countries seeking to adopt frameworks similar to the CSRD. We experience high demand from companies outside the EU seeking to assess their preparedness.
Moreover, the CSRD also applies to EU subsidiaries of non-EU parent companies from 2025, and, starting in 2029 for FY 2028 results, to non-EU companies generating more than €150 million in net turnover in the EU.

PR: Celsia’s SaaS solution was initially developed for reporting in line with EU Taxonomy requirements but has successively been extended to additional frameworks (i.e., full CSRD, including ESRS), in step with the release of these new disclosure standards.

The software and data architecture are extendable to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Sustainability Disclosure Standards which were released in mid-2023 and have been or are in the process of being adopted by regulators in a significant number of jurisdictions globally. We anticipate the Celsia reporting solutions to fully support IFRS/ISSB reporting in the near future to address global reporting needs.

MK: We are committed to helping companies design and manage their governance, compensation, sustainability, and cyber risk programs. From the results of our past two client surveys, it is clear that companies, globally, are putting highest priority on solving their sustainability reporting needs. In response, we worked hard to identify a solution in Celsia that was built by a great team with a complementary culture, expertise, and work ethic. The whole ISS-Corporate team (inclusive of Celsia) will continue to respond nimbly to our client’s needs and market developments—to that end, please stay tuned for our upcoming survey set to launch in May. We want to hear from each of you!