No matter what type of business you’re running, there’s work to be done, and there are tools out there that can make that work more efficient. The problem that many mission-driven businesses run into, however, is that these prospective tools and partners may not align with the values they hold as an organization.
The tools and brands we’ve researched and listed below offer a wide range of capabilities, with your mission front and center. Some prioritize sustainability, renewable energy, and green decision-making, while others focus on consumer privacy, accessibility, direct support for nonprofits, worker rights and ethics, and more. Our team and our clients use several of these tools to better manage day-to-day operations, all while sticking to our core values; learn what they can do in the descriptions below.
EcoSend
EcoSend is an independent email marketing platform that is B Corp certified. It’s unique value proposition: With every email and campaign you send, the company plants trees and funds other biodiversity and climate projects. Your email subscribers, if desired, can also be notified of these impacts when they happen.
Although most businesses choose EcoSend for its sustainability initiatives, it is still a robust email marketing platform that does its job well. Features and value-adds include free migration support, a drag-and-drop editor that’s easy to use, email templates, built-in automations, and live customer support.
Carbon Direct
Carbon Direct is a company that offers a platform, advisory support, and other resources for carbon management. Interested users can partner with Carbon Direct to measure, reduce, remove, and report on their carbon emissions and carbon footprint. This support is offered through the Carbon Direct Platform and hands-on support.
Carbon Direct customers primarily work in financial services, transportation, professional services, data centers, and other service-focused industries that might need carbon solutions. Its specialty services and offerings include carbon credits, climate strategy, advisory support on power and energy usage, sustainable aviation fuel, technical diligence, and other strategic support.
EcoCart
EcoCart offers a platform that supports end-to-end e-commerce solutions and efficiencies, with an emphasis on easy sustainability. For example, if you choose to work with EcoCart, your customers will have the option to offset their order’s carbon footprint for a few cents extra on top of their purchase at checkout.
Other key features of the platform include green shipping protection at checkout, support for smooth returns and exchanges, an analytics dashboard, a Shopify integration, life cycle analysis, a choose your impact approach, and a Live impact widget for Custom plan users. The company is committed to carbon offsetting, various impact projects, and sustainability consultations for its customers.
GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks is a company that provides a range of hosting solutions that are powered by “300% renewable energy.” The company also plants trees for every hosting account. GreenGeeks solutions include shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, data center hosting, dedicated servers, WordPress and several other CMS hosting options, e-commerce hosting, and a website builder.
If your company website runs on WordPress, GreenGeeks is a particularly good solution for you. Its WordPress-specific solutions include WordPress and WooCommerce hosting, free WordPress migration support, security and performance tools, and WordPress for Agencies, which allows users to manage multiple client WordPress sites simultaneously.
Pulsora
Pulsora is an AI-driven sustainability and carbon management platform that has become a favorite of ESG-focused (environmental, social, and governance) companies and groups, including corporate sustainability teams, private capital firms, and more. The platform includes modules for ESG management and reporting, carbon accounting and management, and CSRD reporting and compliance. Across these modules, you’ll find solutions for data collection, measurement and analytics, and reporting.
The AI component of this platform consists of AI agents, a deep context layer, contextual intelligence, and supportive workflows to make sustainability management easier. It works well for and is used by many larger companies, including Accenture, Workday, and BlackRock.
Ecograder
Ecograder is a sustainability tool that is specifically designed to make your website run better and become more eco-friendly. The free tool allows users to evaluate their website’s carbon footprint, overall performance and SEO, hosting servers, and the user experience offered with a simple scan.
This tool is known for being user-friendly and accessible, with clear recommendations for how your website can improve post-scan. Additionally, the tool integrates with the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Sustainability Guidelines, so you can be sure any evaluations and recommendations are based on up-to-date sustainability standards.
WAVE
WAVE, a suite of online tools from WebAIM at Utah State University, is designed specifically to help website owners evaluate the accessibility of their webpages and web content for individuals with disabilities. Its solutions include the WAVE subscription API, the WAVE API and Testing Engine, Accessibility IMpact (AIM) assessment reports, and browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
This is a very simple, entry-level tool for business owners who want to improve their web accessibility bit by bit. For example, you can simply put your web address directly into WAVE’s homepage search bar, and from there, it will quickly tell you if you have any overall errors, contrast errors, or other performance alerts on your website. It can also quickly assess and layout the structure and features of your website for easy perusing and fixing.
Viro AI
Viro AI is a more sustainable alternative for frequent users of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other similar large language models and chatbots. With Viro, users are still able to access these same AI models for their chats, but by using them through Viro, each message funds wind, hydro, ocean cleanup, solar, and storage projects that have been verified.
If you’re a mission-driven business owner, this is the best way to access these tools while offsetting some of the environmental damage that these tools are starting to do. The baseline version of this tool is free, with a few built-in ads to fund climate projects, but there is also a Premium plan option that is only $1 per month.
Plausible
Plausible is similar to Google Analytics, but it is a lighter weight, open source option that is more focused on privacy and compliance. It is hosted in the European Union and powered by European infrastructure, so you can be sure that the tool is safe to use with GDPR and other similar data privacy and compliance laws.
Key features of this web analytics tool include a single-page analytics dashboard, no cookie requirements, AI traffic monitoring, paid ad and campaign tracking, scroll depth tracking, bot filtering, funnels and user journeys, and revenue tracking. Especially for smaller businesses that need access to analytics but need something that runs faster, looks simpler, and feels more private than Google Analytics, this is a great option.
Fathom Analytics
Fathom Analytics is another Google Analytics alternative that prioritizes data privacy. While it is also a lightweight option, it is not open-source, does not have a self-hosting option, and it tends to cost more, with the lowest price being $15 per month or $150 per year. However, it tends to offer more bandwidth for larger websites and businesses, such as its customers like IBM, GitHub, and The New York Times.
Regardless of your company and website size, you’ll have access to features like forever data retention, 100% data ownership, unlimited email reports and data exports, no cookie requirements, and enterprise-grade infrastructure. One of its key draws for many business users is its built-in uptime and downtime monitoring capabilities.
Find the Products and Services That Best Support Your Mission
Chances are, you won’t need all of the tools we’ve listed above, and some of them will be too big or small for your specific needs. But we firmly believe that at least a couple of these tools, when used together, can help you run operations, marketing, sales, and other aspects of your business more effectively, all with the confidence that you’re working with partners that share and uphold your values.
It can be overwhelming to build the right tool stack for your business — especially if you don’t have the time or expertise to research your options. If you’re looking for more information on the tools we’ve mentioned above, or you’re hoping to discover other options that fit with your business goals, our team at Mane Impact would love to help you move forward on that journey. Contact us today for help with finding the right tools and the right partners with the right ethical approach.