Global small-business platform Xero and carbon accounting platform Sumday have announced a partnership that will help accountants and bookkeepers globally to manage their own and their clients’ carbon accounting.
Through the partnership, Xero and Sumday will empower small businesses to understand their emissions to an audit-ready standard through the Sumday platform as a crucial step towards achieving net-zero carbon emissions for small businesses globally.
“Regulators are increasingly signalling mandated carbon accounting globally, making it a non-negotiable for businesses large and small,” Dr Tamara Somers, Director of Sustainability and ESG at Xero, stated. “We’re excited to be partnering with Sumday to enable accountants and bookkeepers on Xero across the world to account for their carbon emissions and support their clients with their efforts. Sumday’s commitment to enabling the accounting and bookkeeping community through education on how and why measuring carbon emissions is important is a big part of what drew us to partner with them.”
Jessica Richmond, CEO and Co-founder of Sumday, pointed out that carbon accounting to an audit-ready standard must be accessible and affordable to all businesses, whether you’re a public company or a small-business supplier.
“It’s the only way we can credibly track progress towards net zero,” Richmond said. “We must make sure businesses aren’t losing out, simply because they can’t provide stakeholders with the emissions data they increasingly need. By partnering with Xero, we can make sure that timely and accurate data is in their hands with the help of an advisor they trust.”
Sumday says that its education-first approach will equip advisors with the knowledge and software required to offer carbon accounting as a new service for their practice. At the same time, its integration with Xero provides easy access to relevant financial and activity data.
“This creates additional revenue opportunities for advisors while helping make audit-ready carbon accounting accessible and affordable for their clients,” Richmond said. “Small businesses can now integrate carbon accounting into their existing financial accounting and reporting, leveraging their accountant or bookkeeper’s expertise.”
Transaction data can be easily coded to the relevant emissions source in Sumday, and a comprehensive carbon general ledger report is generated in Sumday where businesses can see where they stand through working reports and dashboards.
Xero also announced it will use Sumday for its own carbon accounting efforts as part of its net-zero commitments.
“Xero has firmly established our commitment to sustainability and ensuring that small businesses and their advisors have the tools and education to understand carbon impacts and the role they can play,” Somers said.
