Takeaways

• Upright launches an AI-powered ESG due diligence solution that allows investors to assess sustainability risks and opportunities using only a company’s URL.
• The tool shifts focus from company disclosures to value chain risks, supply chain dependencies, and end-use market exposure.
• It supports major frameworks, including CSRD double materiality, UN SDGs, PAI indicators, and the EU Taxonomy, and works for both listed and private companies.

Impact data company Upright has announced the launch of a new AI-powered ESG due diligence solution designed to help investors better understand sustainability risks and opportunities. The tool allows users to generate a detailed sustainability assessment simply by entering a company’s website URL.

The launch comes as investors face growing pressure to strengthen ESG due diligence processes while navigating increasingly complex regulatory and market demands. According to Upright, traditional sustainability due diligence has often relied too heavily on company-reported data, overlooking critical external factors such as value chain risks, supply chain dependencies, and end-use market exposure.

Annu Nieminen, Founder and CEO of Upright, said ESG due diligence has one central purpose: To help investors determine whether sustainability will become a risk or an opportunity in the future.

Read More: What is a Due Diligence in ESG?

“ESG due diligence has one core job: help investors understand whether sustainability is a risk or an opportunity in a deal in the future. It has largely failed at that job—not because sustainability doesn’t drive returns, but because the traditional manual process has been staring at internal and operational aspects, when the actual make-or-break risks and opportunities sit outside the company, in the value chain: The cost of raw materials, supply constraints, end-use changes driven by regulation,” Nieminen said.

She added that risks such as raw material costs, supply constraints, and regulatory-driven changes in end-use markets can significantly impact financial performance but are often underexamined in conventional ESG data reviews.

The new AI-powered tool aims to close this gap. By analyzing publicly available data and applying outside-in modelling, the solution evaluates a company’s products, services, and value chain dependencies. It generates insights into sustainability risks, opportunities, and overall net impact.

The platform aligns its outputs with major regulatory and sustainability frameworks, including CSRD double materiality requirements, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), Principal Adverse Impact (PAI) indicators, and the European Commission’s EU Taxonomy. This makes it particularly relevant for investors operating in regions with tightening ESG reporting standards.

Importantly, the ESG due diligence solution is designed for both listed and unlisted companies. This allows private equity firms, private markets investors, and asset managers to screen and assess sustainability performance across a broad range of assets.

Nieminen also highlighted what she sees as a coming shift in ESG data practices. Currently, she noted, most sustainability information used by investors comes from corporate disclosures, with only a small share derived from independent, outside-in modelling.

“ESG data is about to flip. Right now, 90% of sustainability information investors use comes from company disclosures and 10% from outside-in modelling. Within a few years, I expect that ratio to invert,” she said.

Also Read: AI-Powered ESG Risk Platform GreenFi Secures $2 Mn to Scale Globally

She pointed to physical climate risk as an example, explaining that understanding whether a facility is located in a flood zone requires satellite imagery and geospatial data, information that may not be fully captured in a sustainability report.

As ESG data evolves, Upright’s new sustainability assessment tool signals a broader move toward data-driven, forward-looking ESG due diligence, one that aims to better connect sustainability factors with long-term financial outcomes.

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Source: ESGtoday