CSRD Omnibus Directive: Do You Still Need ESG Software in 2026?

12 min read

Law that built Europe’s ESG software market stopped requiring most companies to buy it. Now AI has to do the selling.

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The EU’s Omnibus I directive has removed about 85% of previously covered companies from mandatory sustainability reporting.
Position Green is expanding through acquisition, osapiens is building scale around shared data, and Workiva is embedding sustainability inside financial reporting.
Their AI offerings increasingly form part of the value proposition, although published examples mainly document faster reporting.

Omnibus I narrows the addressable market

Three companies selling into Europe’s sustainability software market are making a similar pitch this year: AI can add value as regulatory requirements narrow. Position Green points to AI pulling supplier data into one sustainability record. Osapiens ties its AI to lower fuel costs on delivery routes, a side effect of compliance data it was already collecting. Workiva has built AI agents that draft disclosures and check them against changing standards well enough to survive an audit. A few years ago, regulation played a larger role in purchasing decisions. Their AI features now form more of the commercial case.

For much of the past three years, Europe’s sustainability software industry sold into a market shaped by European Union law. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive required roughly 50,000 companies to disclose detailed environmental, social and governance data on a timetable set by the EU. ESG platforms built products around that requirement, including data collection modules, framework mapping, disclosure templates and audit trails. For many companies inside the directive’s scope, the reporting burden made specialist software increasingly difficult to avoid.

That scope has now narrowed considerably. The Omnibus I directive, published as Directive (EU) 2026/470 in February 2026 and in force since March, raised the CSRD’s thresholds so that mandatory reporting applies only to companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than €450 million in turnover. Legal analysts estimate the change excludes 80 to 90% of previously covered companies from the directive’s scope, or roughly 42,000 firms. Sector-specific reporting standards were dropped. A separate stop-the-clock directive, Directive (EU) 2025/794, delayed the rollout that would have brought a second wave of companies into scope in 2026 until 2028, as summarized in a reporting timeline compiled by sustainability platform Dcycle. Accountancy Europe has published a fuller breakdown of the changes for finance professionals.

The practical effect varies by company size. For the largest European businesses, the law still applies and the software still addresses a compliance requirement. For a much larger group of mid-sized companies, software purchases previously driven by regulation have become a genuine choice.

Position Green is pursuing breadth, assembling reporting, carbon accounting and supply chain tools into what it describes as a single platform. Osapiens is building toward scale and a shared data architecture, backed by some of the larger capital raises in the category. Workiva is folding sustainability data into financial and audit reporting, work companies already undertake regardless of CSRD, as a way to support the product’s value beyond the regulatory requirement. Customer buying, renewal and operating decisions will show how these strategies develop.

Position Green’s acquisition strategy

Position Green has made the most visible move. The Nordic sustainability software and advisory company completed three acquisitions in under four months in 2025. In August it bought Morescope, a Norwegian carbon accounting and decarbonization planning platform. In September it bought Greenomy, a Brussels-based CSRD and EU Taxonomy reporting specialist majority owned by the financial infrastructure firm Euroclear. In November it bought Factlines, an Oslo-based supply chain transparency and human rights due diligence provider previously owned by the Norwegian industrial investor Arendals Fossekompani.

Executive Chairman Joachim Nahem described the combined result as a single system: “Position Green is now the platform that connects it all, sustainability reporting, carbon management, supply chain transparency, and capital markets.” Similar framing appears across the three acquisition announcements.

The acquired companies have presented a more incremental picture. Morescope’s own announcement says it “will remain a standalone brand within Position Green, focused on carbon technology and accelerating product innovation,” while gaining access to Position Green’s infrastructure and client network. Factlines’ notice said it would “continue developing its Supplier Relationship Management platform,” adding that “any potential changes to the platform will be communicated in due course.” Its co-founders described integration as something the deal makes possible rather than something it has already delivered, writing that the acquisition would “pave the way to an enhanced” platform.

Daniel Gadd, Position Green’s chief executive, offered a similar timeline a month after the Greenomy deal closed, describing “platform integration, data alignment, and embedding Morescope’s methodology into its own framework” as work still ahead of the company. Available documentation does not establish that the integration is complete. The acquisition announcements indicate that distinct products and brands remain while Position Green works toward a combined offering.

Position Green’s financial disclosures give some sense of where the strategy stands, based on figures compiled from the company’s 2024 Integrated Report and independent reporting on its 2025 estimates. The 2024 report shows group operating income of roughly 327.5 million Norwegian kroner, about €28 million, up nearly 80% on the prior year, alongside a net loss of 123.9 million kroner. The company raised roughly 50 million kroner through an equity rights issue in March 2025 and drew on a 150 million Swedish kronor senior debt facility from the investment firm Ashgrove. The following month, it began a redundancy program that the company linked to the Omnibus changes narrowing its addressable market. All three 2025 acquisitions were structured as equity swaps rather than cash purchases, with the acquired companies’ previous owners, including Euroclear and Arendals Fossekompani, becoming shareholders in Position Green rather than sellers exiting with proceeds.

The same 2024 report shows signs of demand alongside the losses. Annual recurring revenue grew by close to 100%, and net retention was reported above 120%, though both figures describe a period before the Omnibus changes were finalized. Recent independent data does not show whether customers outside the narrower reporting scope are buying, renewing or expanding, or how often the platform informs decisions beyond compliance reporting.

Shared operational data at osapiens

The German company, founded in Mannheim in 2018, reached a valuation above $1 billion in January 2026 following a $100 million round led by Decarbonization Partners, the joint venture between BlackRock and Temasek. That followed a $120 million round the previous year led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives. Co-founder and chief executive Alberto Zamora said the company grew close to 100% in 2025, without giving specific figures or commenting on whether the business is profitable. In August 2026 it acquired Nasdaq Metrio, Nasdaq’s sustainability reporting platform, extending a strategy of consolidation that closely resembles Position Green’s, with acquired adjacent products supplementing internal development.

Osapiens presents its technology as a way to create additional value after the data is collected. Its core product, the osapiens HUB, is described as a single platform running on one shared data model, where supplier, product, procurement, carbon and compliance information is entered once and reused across more than 25 modules. The company presents artificial intelligence as part of the product’s value beyond compliance. Its own case study describes Coca-Cola HBC, a major European bottler, using the platform’s real-time tracking to monitor delivery trucks, optimize routing and reduce fuel costs. The relationship also appears in Handelsblatt’s coverage of osapiens’ funding round, independent of the company’s own materials, though without the operational detail osapiens’ case study provides.

Osapiens has also estimated how the regulatory scope reduction is affecting its market. A company-commissioned survey of 403 senior decision-makers at companies with more than 1,000 employees across the UK, DACH, Benelux and France, conducted in December 2025 and January 2026, found that 24% expect to fall out of CSRD’s scope following the Omnibus changes, while 76% expect to remain covered. The provider-sponsored survey covers large companies and does not include smaller businesses affected by the threshold change, so it cannot verify the market-wide impact independently. It does suggest, on the company’s own telling, a narrower drop in its addressable customer base than the 80 to 90% scope reduction estimated for the CSRD population as a whole, since osapiens’ survey population skews toward larger companies more likely to remain in scope regardless.

Osapiens’ public AI messaging emphasizes efficiency, including less time spent comparing standards or collecting supplier data. The Coca-Cola example documents one operating outcome: route changes that lower fuel use and emissions. Public reporting does not yet indicate how widely that result extends across the customer base.

Sustainability inside Workiva’s finance stack

Workiva starts with the financial and audit infrastructure that companies already maintain regardless of CSRD. The Nasdaq-listed company is adding sustainability reporting to that existing system.

Workiva reported total revenue of $885 million for fiscal 2025, up 20% from $739 million the prior year, with subscription revenue rising 22% to $813 million and a narrowed net loss of $26.2 million. Its most recent quarterly filing, for the period ended June 30, 2026, puts the customer base at more than 6,700 organizations worldwide, including over 85% of the Fortune 1,000. That base was built primarily around SEC financial reporting and audit workflows before sustainability disclosure became part of its offering. The company’s earlier first-quarter results reported 6,665 customers as of March 31, 2026, with gross retention at 97% and net retention at 112%. Those figures were reported after the Omnibus scope reduction took effect, unlike the comparable Position Green retention figures cited above.

In July 2026, the company launched AI agents, including a Sustainability Disclosure Agent that compares existing disclosures against evolving standards such as the EU’s simplified ESRS and the IFRS Foundation’s S1 and S2 frameworks, and a Benchmarking Agent that draws on peer companies’ SEC filings to identify disclosure gaps. Chief Product Officer Deepak Bharadwaj described the aim as helping finance, sustainability, risk and compliance teams move “from execution to orchestration,” with an emphasis on traceability, since AI-generated content in regulated filings is treated by the company as needing the same audit trail as any other disclosure.

A Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Workiva quantifies benefits across finance, sustainability and audit functions using the platform together. It provides commissioned rather than independent evidence. One customer named in Workiva’s own materials, a sustainability governance lead at Cognizant, reported saving roughly 40% of her time using the platform’s AI capabilities, documenting efficiency rather than a changed business decision.

Available evidence across ESG software providers

Position Green’s case rests on combining acquired products into a technically unified system. For osapiens, the shared data model and AI-driven automation are meant to support operational decisions beyond reporting, backed by capital for expansion. Workiva places sustainability data inside financial reporting infrastructure that companies already maintain, regardless of CSRD’s scope.

Available disclosures consist mainly of company statements, commissioned research and customer quotes about time savings. Some results may remain commercially private, and newer products may need more time to produce publishable case studies.

Buyer due diligence

A company leaving CSRD’s scope must decide whether a comprehensive sustainability platform still justifies its cost. It should then compare three approaches with its actual needs: breadth assembled through acquisition, AI-driven operational integration backed by scale, and sustainability embedded in existing financial reporting.

A prospective buyer can ask for a named customer, a quantified outcome and an account of a decision the platform informed. Faster report production demonstrates efficiency; broader operational or financial outcomes require different measures.

How AI is repricing Nordic SaaS, on Fortnox and the same “prove value beyond the old mandate” pressure hitting a different software category
How to evaluate AI stock-research claims, a framework for testing vendor claims against independent evidence
What the EU AI explanation ruling requires, on how EU rules are reshaping what companies must prove about their AI systems

Sources and methodology

This piece draws on company acquisition announcements, executive interviews, audited and self-reported financial disclosures, SEC filings, and independent legal and business press coverage published between August 2025 and August 2026.

FAQ

What is the primary objective of the EU’s Omnibus I directive?

The Omnibus I directive, published in February 2026, serves as a simplification package designed to reduce the administrative burden of sustainability reporting. It achieves this by significantly increasing the employee and turnover thresholds required for mandatory reporting under the CSRD.

How has the scope of companies required to report under the CSRD changed?

Following the directive, only companies with more than 1,000 employees and over €450 million in turnover must report. This change effectively removes approximately 80% to 90% of the companies that were previously subject to the original CSRD requirements.

Is ESG software still relevant for companies if their reporting obligations have become voluntary?

Yes, ESG software remains valuable as firms like Position Green, osapiens, and Workiva emphasize benefits beyond mere compliance. These platforms leverage AI-driven automation and data integration to streamline processes and significantly improve the speed of reporting.

In what ways do companies like Position Green, osapiens, and Workiva utilize AI?

Each company applies AI differently: Position Green consolidates data across products, osapiens automates emission-factor mapping, and Workiva uses AI agents to draft and verify disclosures within financial reporting frameworks. These tools are primarily designed to enhance data accuracy and operational efficiency.

European ESG Software Was Built on Regulation. Now AI Must Sell It

Omnibus I narrows the addressable market

Position Green’s acquisition strategy

Shared operational data at osapiens

Sustainability inside Workiva’s finance stack

Available evidence across ESG software providers

Buyer due diligence

Sources and methodology

FAQ

What is the primary objective of the EU’s Omnibus I directive?

How has the scope of companies required to report under the CSRD changed?

Is ESG software still relevant for companies if their reporting obligations have become voluntary?

In what ways do companies like Position Green, osapiens, and Workiva utilize AI?

Like this:

European ESG Software Was Built on Regulation. Now AI Must Sell It

Omnibus I narrows the addressable market

Position Green’s acquisition strategy

Shared operational data at osapiens

Sustainability inside Workiva’s finance stack

Available evidence across ESG software providers

Buyer due diligence

Related reading

Sources and methodology

FAQ

What is the primary objective of the EU’s Omnibus I directive?

How has the scope of companies required to report under the CSRD changed?

Is ESG software still relevant for companies if their reporting obligations have become voluntary?

In what ways do companies like Position Green, osapiens, and Workiva utilize AI?

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