Watershed vs Workiva

Watershed Wdesk and Workiva are both US-based ESG SaaS platforms for large companies seeking to improve their environmental transparency and customer/stakeholder trust. They provide tools to comply with regulatory reporting standards (e.g., CSRD, ESG, XBRL, etc.) and integrate with third-party data sources (climate, environmental) and corporate information management systems.

But Watershed (founded in 2019) is more focused on carbon accounting (emissions measurement for Scopes 1, 2 and 3). It includes a Carbon Removal Marketplace on which companies can finance carbon removal projects and a own free emissions database, covering multiple industries, many countries and extensive coverage of global economies. The system enables global benchmarking - comparisons with other companies in the industry.

Workiva Wdesk (2008) is an end-to-end ESG reporting system which supports various ESG standards and frameworks, automatic data collection from multiple sources (ERP, SCM, financial systems, etc.). In addition to standard ESG reporting, it supports financial reporting, compliance, risk reporting, internal audits and more. It enables collaboration between teams on report preparation, the ability to track changes and set various access levels. Integration with XBRL and support for electronic reporting formats helps companies submit reports to regulatory authorities online.