BearingPoint is proud to work with Sweep, a leading, AI-powered sustainability data management platform recognized by industry analysts including IDC and Verdantix. This collaboration is designed to help businesses make smarter decisions about sustainability by offering advanced tools for managing carbon and other ESG data, and meeting the requirements of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Sweep was founded in 2020 by the trio of Rachel Delacour, Yannick Chaze and Raphael Güller. To find out more about this partnership, and the people behind it, we put a few questions to Sweep’s CEO Rachel Delacour.
Tell us about yourself, and your career path
I’m Rachel Delacour, co-founder and CEO of Sweep. I am originally from Normandy in Northern France, and now split my time between Paris and southwest France.
I am a two-time software entrepreneur. I began my career working for various large companies, carrying out audits and financial control. I was 25 and working for a shoe company when I realized that the software I needed in order to best achieve my tasks didn’t actually exist. So I decided to create it. This led to me founding my first company, BIME Analytics, a Business Intelligence SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) tool. Seven years later, I sold BIME Analytics to the US company Zendesk.
Why did you co-found Sweep?
Initially after selling BIME, I took time off to spend with my kids, and explore some personal interests, including a cocktail-making diploma, and studying at the International Space University in Strasbourg.
My “Eureka” moment that led to me founding Sweep, along with my co-founders Yannick Chaze and Raphael Güller, came after a conversation with my son.
We were walking along the beach when he asked me a question about climate change and rising sea levels. I was struck by his awareness of these topics, and it spurred me to read the IPCC report for the first time. The findings were very alarming, and I realised that I did have the power to do something positive: co-creating Sweep.
Tell us about what Sweep’s software does
Sweep is a software platform which empowers businesses to take control of their carbon and ESG data and transform it into both a business advantage, and resilience against future sustainability-related challenges.
My co-founders and I started brainstorming a sustainability data management platform that could meet the needs of the biggest players in the corporate and finance world. A platform that could streamline data collection processes, uncover potential for competitive advantage and value-creation, support the implementation of impactful transition plans, and provide real-time feedback so companies can adjust their strategy and keep on top of their targets.
Rachel Delacour, co-founder and CEO of Sweep
It can be very complicated and time-inefficient to obtain and calculate accurate data on carbon emissions, water use, waste, and many other ESG metrics, using traditional methods like spreadsheets. However, this data holds great business value: the opportunity to make operational optimizations, cost savings, create new innovative products and services, attract more investment, de-risk supply chains, and plan for climate adaptations and mitigations.
Most if not all companies and financial organizations started out trying to account for this data manually, on spreadsheets. But the vast quantity and diversity of the data means that this is an inefficient, cumbersome, and error-prone method. My co-founders and I started brainstorming a sustainability data management platform that could meet the needs of the biggest players in the corporate and finance world. A platform that could streamline data collection processes, uncover potential for competitive advantage and value-creation, support the implementation of impactful transition plans, and provide real-time feedback so companies can adjust their strategy and keep on top of their targets. And that was the birth of Sweep, in April 2020.
How many employees do you have, and where are they based?
Our diversity is one of our greatest assets. Today we have more than 170 employees, or “Sweepers”, of more than 30 different nationalities, working across North America, Europe and Asia. In 2024 we acquired a UK-founded AI-focussed start-up called Consequence, integrating its teams into the Sweep family, and enhancing our AI innovations, which are today threaded throughout the entire Sweep platform.
What kinds of companies do you work with?
We can work with the biggest Fortune 500 brands, FTSE-100-listed companies, through to SMEs. Our powerful platform can tackle challenging and complex data projects, which is why these companies choose us over our many competitors. We excel in supporting multinational companies with long and complex supply chains, or financial organizations which need to make complex calculations around their financed emissions. To name a few: L’Oréal, Orange, Bouygues, Kantar, Decathlon, ADEO, SSE, QVC, CH Robinson, Swisscom, BlackRock, Coatue, Maxeda.
Do sustainability programs make good business sense?
Simply put, “Sustainability is smart business”. ESG is not just a business acronym, it is a fundamental lever for growth and value-creation. When an organization adopts sustainable and responsible practices, it sets itself up to grow and create value in a sustainable way, while distinguishing itself from competitors who fail to harness these principles. In the end those are the ones who, inevitably, will only see their business decline.
On the other hand, businesses which seize this opportunity will continue to grow in a future context of limited resources and growing economic challenges. As I said before, the data management can be complex - and this is where Sweep’s platform comes in.
Can you back up these claims about Sweep’s capabilities?
Happily for me, and for our customers, I certainly can! Independent analysts from Verdantix calculated recently that businesses could realize the following from investing in Sweep:
- 238% ROI over three years
- €1.23M in total benefits over that period
- €864K net present value (NPV) over three years
- A 9-month break-even point, which shows rapid value realization
On performance, Sweep certainly holds its own against long-established software players. In a separate Verdantix report, Sweep was positioned as a top 3 sustainability and ESG reporting solution. Meanwhile, in a recent report by the US-headquartered global market intelligence firm IDC, Sweep was named a sustainability management software leader. I’m very proud of these results, because we work hard to create and continually improve our software, with the aim of bringing value to businesses and the climate.
Leading BearingPoint's partnerships with ESG providers gives me the opportunity to work with a variety of vendors. Sweep stands out for the depth of its carbon emissions analysis, its decarbonization trajectory management, and the level of centralization of its CSR data. I consider this provider a multi-specialist in CSR data, and I'm delighted to collaborate with Rachel and her teams.
Sebastien Guechot, Partner at BearingPoint
Tell us about your partnership with BearingPoint?
BearingPoint is an important strategic partner for us. Our collaboration is all about helping businesses to make smarter decisions about sustainability. Together, we do this by offering Sweep’s advanced software, and connecting data-driven insights with action to create a lasting positive impact both for the environment and for the business itself. BearingPoint has extensive expertise in sustainability, which ensures that solutions are tailored to each client’s needs. With subjects as complex as these, this bespoke approach is extremely valuable.
You said that businesses all over the world are already Sweep customers. What is Sweep’s relationship with the Netherlands?
We have been working with several Netherlands-based customers for some time, including Maxeda - for whom we work in partnership with BearingPoint, as well as other well-known firms including Canon Production Printing.
The Netherlands is a very interesting market, being a vibrant business hub in Europe across a host of industries, with well-established international trade links. As an EU member state, its companies are also among the first to face compliance with the landmark Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), one of the most significant pieces of climate-focussed legislation in the world, and an area of particular strength for Sweep. I’m proud to say that our software has been singled out by the French business group MEDEF as the best product on the market for CSRD reporting, and we are already working with many businesses across Europe and beyond on their CSRD compliance.
On a less business-focussed note, we were recently delighted to host an all-company offsite in Amsterdam, and it was a great success. We brought together Sweepers who are normally based all across the world - most of them travelling by train - and enjoyed three days of great discussions, locally-sourced food, and beautiful surroundings. And nobody fell in any canals!
