We've been named to the TIME100 Companies: Industry Leaders list as one of the 10 most influential sustainability companies of 2026.
“When the Trump Administration announced last year that it would stop updating a key database that companies use to calculate their supply chain emissions, corporate sustainability data services provider Watershed stepped in, creating a free alternative available to companies. The program, called Cornerstone and launched in partnership with Stanford University in August, helps companies calculate their emissions based on their economic activities—just as the Environmental Protection Agency’s program did.
“A free data platform may seem like an unusual bet for a firm that sells software to help companies understand their climate impact, but co-founder Taylor Francis insists replacing EPA data helps keep the broader sustainability infrastructure intact, which is crucial to the company’s prospects. ‘We will succeed if corporate sustainability succeeds,’ Francis says. And as companies face new and evolving requirements to report their climate-causing emissions in places like the European Union and California, Watershed is poised to help further.”
In 2026, sustainability teams need to measure and report environmental impact, make progress towards reductions targets, and deliver value across the business. Watershed is building purpose-built tools to help them do so.
“We’re investing in accelerating the climate economy from every angle: updating and maintaining the world’s most comprehensive climate databases for granular emissions measurement, building trustworthy, science-backed sustainability AI that enables time savings and actionable insights, and facilitating new clean power for customers. We’re grateful to the companies that trust us to partner with them on this critical work,” said Watershed co-founder Taylor Francis.
Over the last year, we’ve launched a series of sustainability AI tools that are unlocking new efficiencies and decarbonization pathways for customers:
- Product Footprints, the most advanced AI-powered product footprints tool on the market, enables physical goods companies to compare the impact of switching materials or suppliers. Burton, the outdoor equipment manufacturer, used Product Footprints to identify a recycled TPU that would save $130,000 while reducing emissions.
- Watershed agents for data analysis help sustainability leads get more from their data; one customer is using an agent to model energy procurement costs in a volatile market.
- Watershed agents for data cleaning are saving sustainability teams weeks of work, cutting time to actionable data by 80%. One company completed a 5-hour data cleaning project in 20 minutes, lowering time needed by 93% and finishing the job 15x faster.
- Automated report drafting is cutting time to climate disclosure. Smiths Group finished their disclosure for California’s SB 261 in just two days.
Watershed works with over 800 global companies, including 90 of the Fortune 500, and 5 of the 6 biggest US banks. Our platform is used across industries—from legacy apparel brands like Dr. Martens, to shipping giants like FedEx, to tech companies like Airbnb, and private equity firms like Carlyle Group. Our mission is simple: accelerate the climate economy by giving our customers the tools to make sustainability a profitable, repeatable, and risk-proof part of their business.
Read the full TIME100 list here. Read more about Cornerstone here.
