The client portal for independent sustainability and ESG consultants.
Make the data you are waiting on visible to the people holding it, keep an evidence trail that assembles itself, and bill the advisory between reporting cycles.
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Generic client tools don’t know what you actually deliver.
The bottleneck is always data you do not control
Utility bills from four sites, fleet mileage, supplier spend, HR headcount by month. None of it is yours, all of it is with someone at the client who has a day job, and your reporting timeline is entirely hostage to when they get round to it. The chasing is unbillable and it is most of the engagement.
Everything you produce may be assured later
When an assurance provider or an auditor arrives, they follow the number back to its source. If your working files are a folder of spreadsheets emailed at various points by various people, that traceability exists in your head rather than in the record — which is a problem for your client and a reputational one for you.
The frameworks move underneath you
GRI, SASB, CSRD, ISSB — reporting requirements shift, phase in, and get reinterpreted. Clients ask what changed and what it means for them, and answering well means being able to point at what you told them last cycle and how the scope is different this time.
Annual cycles bill like a project and behave like a retainer
The reporting engagement is seasonal but the advisory relationship is continuous. Most independent ESG consultants end up doing several months of unbilled availability between cycles because there was never a structure that covered it.
How sustainability and ESG consultants use ConsultBase.
How does a sustainability or ESG consultant use ConsultBase?
You create an engagement per reporting cycle with milestones matching the real sequence — materiality assessment complete, data collection closed, Scope 1 and 2 calculated, Scope 3 estimated, draft report delivered, assurance readiness review, published. Deliverables sit under those milestones for the client to formally approve, and every document shared carries a date and an approval history.
How does this help with chasing client data?
The portal shows what you are waiting on from their side as a standing, visible item rather than a request buried in a three-week-old email. That changes the dynamic: instead of you chasing, the outstanding list is simply there whenever they look, alongside the phase it is holding up. It does not collect the data for you, but it removes the part where the client genuinely did not realise they were the blocker.
Can I keep an evidence trail an assurance provider can follow?
Every document shared and every deliverable approved is stored against the engagement with a timestamp and approval history, so the chain from source document to delivered figure is recorded as you work rather than reconstructed under time pressure. That is a documentation trail rather than a formal assurance system — but for a solo practice it is the difference between traceability existing and traceability being asserted.
How do I handle the same client across multiple reporting years?
Run each cycle as its own engagement for the same client, so last year’s scope, deliverables and approvals stay intact and readable while this year’s runs alongside. When a client asks what changed since last cycle, you are comparing two records rather than remembering.
How do I bill across a seasonal cycle?
For the reporting engagement itself, invoice per milestone as each phase closes — an accepted proposal converts to an invoice in one click. For the continuous advisory between cycles, set up a recurring invoice with your own amount, frequency, terms and tax rate, and it sends on schedule with a payment link. That converts the between-cycles availability from unbilled goodwill into a defined retainer.
What about scoping a reporting engagement?
The free SOW generator produces a formatted statement of work — scope, deliverables, timeline, payment terms — as PDF or Word with no account required, and the retainer agreement generator covers the ongoing arrangement including included-hours and overage structures. With an account, either saves as a proposal the client signs online and becomes an engagement with milestones on acceptance.
Questions sustainability and ESG consultants ask.
Does ConsultBase calculate emissions or hold a factor library?
No. There is no carbon accounting engine, no emissions factor database, no Scope 3 calculation, and no framework-mapped disclosure templates. Your calculations happen in whatever carbon accounting platform or model you already use. ConsultBase manages the consulting engagement around that work — scope, deliverables, approvals, the document trail, and billing.
Is it a compliant system for CSRD or assurance purposes?
It is not certified or audited against any reporting or assurance standard, and it should not be presented to an assurance provider as a controlled system. What it provides is a dated, attributable record of what you delivered and what the client approved, which supports traceability without claiming to satisfy a specific standard. If your client is subject to formal assurance, confirm what their provider requires rather than assuming this covers it.
Can the client upload their own data files into the portal?
Yes — clients can upload documents into their portal, which is the usual route for utility bills, supplier data and HR extracts rather than emailing attachments. Files land against the engagement with a date, so the provenance of a source document is recorded at the point it arrives.
Can I run one engagement across a group with several subsidiaries?
Each entity would be its own client with its own portal — there is no parent/child hierarchy linking related organisations, and no consolidated view across them. For a group reporting on a consolidated basis that means the consolidation happens in your model, not here. Workable, but worth knowing before you scope a group engagement around it.
What does it cost, and is my client count capped?
Every paid plan includes unlimited clients, so running several reporting cycles alongside continuous advisory is not a pricing problem. Plans differ on team size, AI access and white-labelling. Firm removes the “Powered by ConsultBase” mark from every client-facing surface. There is a 14-day free trial and no credit card is required.
ESG consulting has a structural problem that most advisory fields do not: the majority of your engagement depends on data held by people who do not report to you and are not measured on getting it to you. Everything else — the frameworks, the calculations, the report — is tractable by comparison.
Making that dependency visible is most of the fix. When the outstanding list sits in a portal your client sees, alongside the phase it is holding up, the chasing conversation stops being a reminder you have to send and starts being a fact they can see.
ConsultBase was built for advisory practices — engagements rather than projects, deliverables the client formally approves rather than tasks, retainers rather than subscriptions. It will not calculate your Scope 3. It keeps the record straight, makes the bottleneck legible, and bills the continuous half of the relationship that most independent practitioners give away.
Built for the way you work.
Unlimited clients on every plan, a branded portal your clients actually log into, and Ivy — a 50+ tool AI associate that knows your engagements.
Start your 14-day free trialPrefer to try something first? Use our free SOW and contract generators — no account needed.