PE & VC Portfolio Carbon Accounting

Help your portfolio to measure, reduce, and report their carbon emissions - with our easy-to-use platform.

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Investors need to future-proof their portfolios

Private equity and venture capital firms face growing pressure to measure, disclose, and reduce financed emissions. LPs, regulators, and frameworks increasingly expect robust, portfolio-wide reporting.

But this relies on being able to engage a diverse mix of portfolio companies - each with different sizes, sectors, maturity levels, and capabilities.

Without consistent primary data, firms are forced to rely on high-level estimates that obscure real risk, limit insight, and weaken the credibility of disclosures.

Your portcos aren’t climate experts (and never will be)

Most portfolio companies - especially in the growth and mid-market stages - lack dedicated sustainability teams, expertise, or budget.

As a result, they face a difficult trade-off:

- Do nothing (creating reporting gaps and future risk)
- Use simplistic tools that produce unreliable numbers
- Engage consultants at high cost with limited scalability

Meanwhile, investors struggle to drive consistent action across diverse holdings without adding operational burden to management teams.

Seedling equips every portfolio company with a robust strategy

Invite your portfolio companies to use a guided, easy-to-complete carbon accounting process designed around how growth businesses actually operate. We handle the complexity behind the scenes, so they don’t have to.

Portfolio companies get:

An easy but reliable way of measuring their emissions.

Clear advice on decarbonisation.

The ability to turn a tick-box into a value-add.

You get:

High-quality primary Scope 3 data.

A consistent methodology.

A path to portfolio decarbonisation.

Why partner with Seedling?

Designed for your portfolio

Seedling is designed for small to mid-market businesses - those without a full-time ESG team. We're easy-to-use with an affordable pricing model that scales with the client's size and complexity.

Credible data, not estimates

Our platform is built in line witht he GHG Protocol. It's easy to use but doesn't compromise on rigour. You can be confident we're capturing all relevant Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions from your suppliers.

Value-add, not a tick-box

When your portfolio uses Seedling, we help them turn what is often a tick-box into a genuinely value-add exercise, helping them cut costs and build sustainability into their own sales / marketing strategy.

What our clients say

Hear from our satisfied Seedling clients

‘We are incredibly happy with our experience with Seedling. We were guided through the process, and it was simple for us to submit the required information. We also had transparency over our offsetting projects. We now understand our footprint and how to reduce it.’

Consulting

Megan Savage Shaw

ESG Lead

CIL

“As a start-up, I found it really hard to find a carbon accounting solution to suit. Along came Seedling. From the start, I was impressed by their approach and knowledge, and the intuitiveness and agility of the Seedling platform. They’re always happy to respond to my endless questions and work to find a solution, for example helping quantify the carbon impact of our payments product.”

Financial services

Lisa Stanley

Chief Sustainability Officer

Zero

“Any feelings of being overwhelmed by measuring and reporting our emissions were quickly overcome as a result of the fantastic help and guidance from Seedling. The whole process was really smooth, clearly explained and efficiently delivered.”

Creative agency

Leo Sudea

Operations Director

400 Communications

"I have found Seedling to be a relatively easy and hassle-free method of carbon tracking. Their web app combines sleek design with AI features, making carbon reporting easy. My favourite feature so far is the AI that matches categories to the expenditure entered. This saves lots of time and is really accurate. The team (Henry) has also been really helpful, providing individualised support where needed."

Construction

Ryan Prance

Operations

Kennford Tarmacadam

"Seedling has enabled us to play around with our strategy and understand the impact of any changes we make. For instance, if we want to switch 60% of cotton to recycled, we can quantify the impact that this will have. This is so helpful because once we've set targets, the key challenge is understanding how we get there."

Fashion

Mica Phillips

Sustainability Manager

Margaret Howell

View all

FAQs

Your questions answered

Is Seedling a good fit for my portfolio?

Seedling is built for small to mid-market businesses without an internal ESG or carbon team. We have clients ranging from 10 FTEs right up to 2000 FTEs. We're less suitable for large multinationals / listed businesses with 5000+ FTEs. These tend to have complex needs and are better suited to working with a consultancy or enterprise-focused platform.

What standards does Seedling align to?

Seedling is built on the GHG Protocol - the global gold standard for carbon accounting and reporting. We also support ISO 14064 measurement and verification.

Do our portcos need sustainability expertise?

Not at all. While we work with many sustainability teams, we also work with leads in ops, finance, HR or marketing - whoever has taken on the carbon footprinting role alongside the day job. The platform is designed with that profile in mind, and there's guidance from our experts every step of the way.

How does pricing work?

Each portfolio company can sign up to Seedling's free plan and produce a basic footprint. If they see the value in our paid plans, they can upgrade - this starts at £80/month.

How is Seedling different from surveys or simple carbon calculators?

Surveys typically collect inconsistent or incomplete information, while basic calculators rely on rough estimates that lack credibility. Seedling provides a full measurement experience - combining guidance, methodology, and automated calculations - so you get robust primary data at scale without deploying complex enterprise tools to every portfolio company.

Still have questions?

Book a demo or get in touch and we'll be happy to help. Or follow this step-by-step guide to measuring your business's carbon footprint.

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