Wholesalers have been left with one of the hardest sustainability jobs in the supply chain.
Customers want data about products. Suppliers hold fragments of that data. The wholesaler has thousands of SKUs, limited leverage over manufacturing and a catalogue designed around price, dimensions and availability — not carbon, sourcing, chemicals, certifications or end-of-life.
There is no single "sustainability software" category that fixes all of this. The market contains corporate carbon platforms, supplier ratings, audit networks, lifecycle assessment tools and product-data systems. They solve related but different problems.
This guide compares seven strong options for wholesalers and distributors. Zilch is included because we built it for this market. We will be direct about that, and equally direct about the jobs other platforms handle better.
The shortlist
- Zilch — best for product-level impact data in wholesale sales channels
- EcoVadis — best for company and supplier sustainability ratings
- Sedex — best for factory-level responsible-sourcing evidence
- IntegrityNext — best for large-scale supplier due diligence and monitoring
- Normative — best for corporate carbon accounting and supplier engagement
- Ecochain — best for manufacturers and distributors with detailed product data
- Sphera — best for complex enterprise lifecycle assessment and product stewardship
The four layers wholesalers need to separate
Before comparing vendors, separate the work into four layers.
Organisational performance
This includes your company's Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, sustainability strategy, policies, targets and disclosures.
Supplier performance
This covers whether suppliers have credible environmental, labour, ethics and procurement systems.
Factory and supply-chain risk
This goes deeper into manufacturing sites, countries, materials, labour conditions, audits, grievances and corrective action.
Product performance
This is the information attached to the item being purchased: composition, weight, certifications, recycled content, emissions, packaging, country of manufacture and end-of-life.
Most platforms are strong in one or two layers. Problems arise when a company rating is used as proof of a product claim, or a product footprint is expected to demonstrate a complete human-rights due-diligence system.
1. Zilch
Best for: Wholesalers and distributors that need product-level sustainability information across large catalogues and customer-facing sales workflows.
Zilch creates structured impact data at SKU level. It is designed to turn supplier and product inputs into usable information for tenders, quotes, invoices, product pages, catalogues and customer reports.
That focus matters because most wholesale sustainability projects stop at reporting. Zilch is intended to bring the information into the buying decision and help the distributor win and retain corporate and government customers.
The platform supports scalable product carbon footprint assessments, product evidence, supplier information, bulk workflows and catalogue distribution. Zilch's website reports more than 20,000 products in its database and product assessment workflows of around 30 seconds per SKU.
Strengths
- Purpose-built for distributors and suppliers
- SKU-level data across large product catalogues
- Product carbon footprints with documented inputs and methodology
- Outputs for tenders, product pages, quotes, invoices and reports
- Bridges supplier data and customer requirements
- Turns sustainability into sales information rather than a separate annual report
Limitations
- Does not replace organisational carbon accounting across Scope 1, 2 and 3
- Does not provide an EcoVadis-style company rating
- Does not replace factory social audits or complete supply-chain due diligence
Choose Zilch when: Customers are asking product questions your catalogue cannot answer, particularly in tenders, procurement reviews and Scope 3 data requests.
2. EcoVadis
Best for: Wholesalers that need a recognised assessment of their own sustainability system or want standardised supplier ratings.
EcoVadis rates company sustainability management across environment, labour and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement. The assessment is customised by activity, company size and operating location.
For a wholesaler, EcoVadis can work in two directions. The business may complete its own rating to meet customer requirements. Larger procurement teams may also use EcoVadis to assess suppliers.
Strengths
- Recognised by major corporate procurement teams
- Company-level scorecard and improvement areas
- Covers environmental and social management, not only carbon
- Can reduce duplicated supplier assessment work where customers accept the scorecard
Limitations
- EcoVadis medals are not product labels and cannot substantiate claims about individual products
- Does not create catalogue-ready SKU information
- Requires current formal evidence and periodic reassessment
Choose EcoVadis when: A major customer requests an EcoVadis score or supplier-level sustainability performance is the primary problem.
3. Sedex
Best for: Wholesalers with international sourcing exposure that need site-level risk, audit and corrective-action information.
Sedex maps supply chains and helps businesses assess risks related to labour standards, health and safety, environment and ethics. It combines country and sector risk, supplier self-assessments, site data and audits such as SMETA.
This makes it useful where a wholesaler needs to see past the immediate vendor to the factory or facility producing the goods.
Strengths
- Site and factory-level responsible-sourcing information
- Risk screening across countries, sectors and sites
- Audit and corrective-action workflows
- Useful for human-rights and modern-slavery due diligence
- Existing supplier network can reduce repeated data collection
Limitations
- Does not calculate product footprints
- Audit participation and data quality vary across suppliers
- Site evidence still needs to be connected to the products sourced from that site
Choose Sedex when: Your central risk is how and where products are manufactured rather than their carbon footprint alone.
4. IntegrityNext
Best for: Larger procurement organisations that need to assess, monitor and engage many suppliers against sustainability and regulatory requirements.
IntegrityNext is a supply-chain sustainability platform focused on supplier risk, due diligence, regulatory compliance and procurement integration. The company says its network monitors more than 2.8 million suppliers across more than 190 countries.
The platform is designed to bring ESG information into sourcing, contracting and supplier management, with automated data collection, risk analysis, assessments and improvement workflows.
Strengths
- Large supplier network and monitoring coverage
- Sustainable procurement and supplier due diligence
- Regulatory reporting and risk-management workflows
- Integrations with procurement and supplier-management systems
- Strong fit for complex enterprise supply chains
Limitations
- Primarily a supplier and compliance platform, not a product-catalogue impact engine
- Likely too heavy for smaller wholesalers with a narrow supplier base
- Product-specific carbon and claims evidence may require another system
Choose IntegrityNext when: The procurement team needs continuous ESG visibility and due-diligence workflows across a large, international supplier network.
5. Normative
Best for: Wholesalers that need a defensible organisational carbon inventory and structured supplier engagement.
Normative calculates corporate Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and supports climate reporting, targets, supplier engagement and audit preparation. It has also introduced product carbon footprint capabilities for companies with physical products and bill-of-materials data.
For wholesalers, the corporate platform may be the main attraction: importing financial and activity data, measuring the company footprint and working toward better Scope 3 information.
Strengths
- Organisational carbon accounting across all scopes
- Strong methodology and audit-support positioning
- Large emission-factor library
- Supplier engagement
- Product carbon footprint capability for suitable product data
Limitations
- Enterprise carbon reporting is the core workflow, rather than putting product data into wholesale catalogues and quotes
- Spend-based Scope 3 estimates do not answer every SKU-level customer request
- Does not replace broader supplier social-audit systems
Choose Normative when: Finance or sustainability needs an organisational inventory and reporting platform, with product footprinting as an adjacent requirement.
6. Ecochain
Best for: Manufacturers, private-label wholesalers and distributors with detailed production data that need portfolio lifecycle assessments.
Ecochain helps manufacturers calculate product and portfolio footprints, including product carbon footprints and broader LCA outputs. Its software aims to automate repeatable assessments without requiring an LCA consultant for every product.
It can be a strong option where the wholesaler owns or closely controls product design and manufacturing data. A pure reseller with limited bill-of-materials information may struggle to obtain the inputs needed.
Strengths
- Product and portfolio footprinting
- PCF, LCA and EPD-related workflows
- Scenario and hotspot analysis
- Designed to scale beyond one-off product studies
Limitations
- Manufacturer-oriented rather than distributor sales-oriented
- Requires detailed product and production data
- Does not cover supplier ethical risk or corporate ESG ratings
Choose Ecochain when: You control the product and production inputs and need technically detailed footprinting across a portfolio.
7. Sphera
Best for: Large enterprises with specialist product-stewardship teams and complex LCA, compliance and data requirements.
Sphera provides lifecycle assessment software, data and automation. Its LCA for Experts product supports detailed studies, while its automation tools are designed to scale assessments across portfolios.
Sphera is an established option for manufacturers and technical teams that need depth across lifecycle impact categories, product stewardship and regulatory use cases.
Strengths
- Deep LCA capability and established datasets
- Tools for specialists and automated portfolio assessment
- Multi-impact environmental analysis beyond carbon
- Strong fit for complex manufacturing and product-stewardship programs
Limitations
- Greater technical and implementation burden
- More than most general wholesalers need
- Not designed primarily around distributor sales channels and tender responses
Choose Sphera when: You have a specialist team, complex manufactured products and lifecycle assessment requirements extending well beyond a product carbon footprint.
How to make the decision
Do not begin with vendor demonstrations. Begin with ten recent customer requests.
Classify each request:
- Company emissions
- Supplier rating
- Factory or modern-slavery evidence
- Product carbon footprint
- Recycled content or certification
- Tender response
- Customer reporting
- Product comparison
Then ask where the answer needs to appear. A board report, procurement system, supplier portal, catalogue, product page and invoice are very different destinations.
Finally, assess the available data. A system that promises perfect product LCAs is not useful if your suppliers only provide a product name and carton quantity. The implementation plan should include supplier engagement, secondary data for gaps, quality flags and a pathway to improve information over time.
A realistic software stack for a wholesaler
A larger wholesaler may ultimately use:
- A corporate carbon platform for organisational reporting
- EcoVadis, Sedex or IntegrityNext for company and supply-chain risk
- Zilch or an LCA platform for product-level information
- Existing ERP, PIM and e-commerce systems to distribute the results
The goal is not to collect the maximum number of dashboards. It is to create a usable chain of evidence from supplier to SKU to customer.
The short version
If customers are asking whether your company is responsible, start at the company and supplier layer.
If they are asking which product to choose, what its emissions are or how to include it in their own reporting, you need product-level data.
Zilch is built for that second problem. See how Zilch helps distributors embed product impact into catalogues and customer workflows.