Green Business Benchmark° is sustainability program management software that helps organizations assess current practices, track progress, organize evidence, and work toward recognition through GBB certification and third-party frameworks such as GRI, SDG, GHG Protocol, ISO 14001, SASB, and EPR.
It is the organization-level program and benchmark layer in the Clearyst° portfolio.
Who is this article for
New Green Business Benchmark° customers
Organization Owners
Organization Admins
Program Owners
What you'll accomplish
This article helps you:
Understand Green Business Benchmark
Learn how to begin setting up your organization
Understand how subscription plans affect available features
Find the next onboarding resources
What Green Business Benchmark° helps you do
Many organizations are further along than their ratings or public sustainability profiles suggest. The issue is often not a lack of action. It is a lack of structure, documentation, and evidence.
Green Business Benchmark° helps close that gap. It gives organizations a structured place to:
Capture sustainability work already happening across the business
Assess current practices
Track initiatives and improvements
Organize documentation and evidence
Work toward GBB certification
Support third-party frameworks and expectations
Show measurable progress over time
This is not about creating the appearance of sustainability. It is about making genuine sustainability work visible, measurable, and useful.
Understand your subscription plan
Your Green Business Benchmark subscription determines which features are available in your organization. Some capabilities are included with every plan, while others are available only on higher tier subscriptions.
Before you begin, it's helpful to know which plan your organization purchased so you know what features to expect during setup and day to day use.
Core capabilities
Depending on your subscription, your organization may have access to capabilities such as:
Organization and group management
Sustainability assessments and initiatives
Progress tracking
Reporting and analytics
Certification support
Advanced capabilities
Higher tier plans may also include additional functionality designed for larger or more complex sustainability programs.
Examples include advanced reporting, expanded framework support, additional collaboration capabilities, and other enterprise features, depending on your subscription.
Tip: If a feature described in the Help Center isn't available in your account, it may not be included in your current subscription.
To compare plans and see the features included with each subscription, visit the Green Business Benchmark° Pricing page.
If you're unsure which subscription your organization has, contact your organization administrator or our support team.
Why documentation matters
Many organizations are already taking meaningful sustainability actions, such as:
Reducing energy use
Improving waste practices
Updating facilities
Adopting responsible purchasing policies
Engaging employees
Formalizing governance
But if those actions are not captured, documented, and mapped to standards, they may not improve performance, support certification, strengthen customer responses, or demonstrate measurable progress.
Green Business Benchmark° helps organizations build a sustainability program that reflects what the business is actually doing.
Core platform areas
Green Business Benchmark° includes several core areas: organizations and groups, initiatives, certification, milestones, directory, analytics, and billing.
These areas work together to help teams manage sustainability activity at the organization and group level.
Start with your organization
Your organization is the primary account unit in Green Business Benchmark°.
All groups, members, billing, and data belong to an organization. If you belong to more than one organization, your role may be different in each one.
Start here if you need to:
Set up a new organization
Update organization details
Invite members
Assign roles
Create groups
Understand admin and owner permissions
Recommended article: Understanding Organizations, Roles, and Groups
Set up your groups
Groups are the working units where sustainability activity is tracked.
A group may represent a:
Location
Department
Facility
Business unit
Other organizational unit
Sustainability features such as initiatives, milestones, certification, and scoring are tracked at the group level.
Invite the right people
Green Business Benchmark° uses roles to control access.
At a high level:
Members can participate in group activities
Admins can manage settings, members, groups, and roles
Owners have full control, including billing and organization deletion
Make sure each person has the right role for the work they need to do.
Understand initiatives and certification
Initiatives are sustainability actions that groups can work on and complete. They are organized by category and Global Framework Alignment, and completing them earns points toward certification.
As groups complete initiatives, they build a more complete record of sustainability progress.
Certification tiers include:
Tier | General meaning |
Committed | Starting state before prerequisites are met |
Bronze | Early progress |
Silver | Growing progress |
Gold | Advanced progress |
Platinum | Highest progress tier |
Recommended article: Initiatives and Certification Overview
Review your plan and billing setup
Most platform features require an active subscription. If your plan does not include a feature, you may see an upgrade prompt.
Billing is managed at the organization level. Plans may define:
Available features
Group limits
Member limits
Access levels for assessments, roadmaps, or initiatives
Subscription status and payment requirements
Recommended article: Billing and Subscription
Know what to do if access is blocked
Access depends on your sign-in status, role, plan, and subscription status.
You may see an error or prompt if:
Your session expired
Your role does not allow the action
Your plan does not include the feature
Your organization does not have an active subscription
A temporary platform issue occurred
If you contact support about an error, share the correlation ID shown with the error message. This helps the support team trace what happened.
Recommended first steps
If you are setting up Green Business Benchmark° for the first time:
Create or access your account.
Confirm your organization details.
Review your role and permissions.
Create or confirm your first group.
Invite members who need access.
Review your subscription and group limits.
Explore available initiatives.
Begin capturing current practices, documentation, and evidence.
Track progress toward certification and relevant sustainability frameworks.