Verdantix has named Assent a leader in its Green Quadrant: Supply Chain Sustainability Software (2026) for the second time, after our first acknowledgement in 2024. We’re also a leader in their Green Quadrant for Product Compliance Software. That recognition reflects the strength of our technology, data quality, supplier engagement, and services.
Every manufacturer I’ve spoken with knows from experience that software alone doesn’t fix the gaps in their data. Product intelligence is the way forward.
Why Isn’t Software Enough?
Collecting supply chain data to manage risk is still unresolved for most manufacturers and distributors. Meeting requirements keeps getting harder due to:
- Trade policy volatility and geopolitical instability
- Shifting political discourse around sustainability
- Product-level regulations that demand detail most companies can’t produce today
Firms are investing in sustainability initiatives to build resilience and reduce risk. The need for connected supply chain data is rising with it. Software with a robust data foundation is what moves a program from manual data collection with limited coverage to using insights at scale to reduce business risk. It’s one of the biggest opportunities available to companies right now, provided it comes with product intelligence, expertise, AI innovation, support, and services.
What Does Good Data Actually Unlock?
To manage risk proactively, you need transparency into your supply chain. Most companies don’t have it yet:
- More than 80% of firms told Verdantix that poor social and environmental data is a top challenge.
- 79% expect product and supply chain sustainability regulations to be a key investment driver over the next two years.
- Requirements like CBAM and EUDR demand a level of detail most manufacturers aren’t prepared to deliver.
Incomplete data limits transparency, exposes gaps, and leaves critical information unavailable to regulators, customers, and investors.
Get the foundation right and the picture changes. Teams make smarter decisions earlier and faster. Insights update alongside regulatory change, so what you share with a customer or a regulator is more likely to be accurate and easier to defend.. You get the efficiency gain now and better data over time.
What Do Suppliers Actually Need From Us?
Supply chain sustainability is only as strong as the suppliers in your network. Software can speed up how fast a supplier responds to a request but standalone, it doesn’t give them what they need to improve.
That gap matters more every year:
- More than 90% of firms already recognize and reward suppliers for strong sustainability performance, or expect to.
- Supplier maturity determines whether you get accurate, complete data that holds up under audit.
- Companies want to identify risk and drive improvement across the network. They need insights they can use, centralized data management, and a process suppliers can actually complete.
Assent’s industry-leading supplier network, automated workflows specifically tailored to your suppliers’ needs, and local language support and services allow seamless engagement, resulting in faster and more accurate data collection, stronger relationships, and the ability to scale programs.
Where Does Expertise Come In?
What separates programs that absorb regulatory change from programs that scramble isn’t just the software. It’s the regulatory and program guidance layered into them: what’s changing, and what it means for your business specifically.
Two things follow from that:
- Trusted guidance turns compliance from a reactive cost into a proactive activity that protects revenue and wins contracts.
- Expertise tells you which data gaps matter most, so instead of chasing every missing field, your team knows which suppliers, parts and declarations to fix first.
That allows companies to focus effort where it matters most, whether that’s supplier engagement, product testing, or redesign. The compliance process then moves from identifying risk to actively using the data to guide better decisions – fundamentally improving how companies design, source, and manage products.
Will AI Accelerate Impact?
Artificial intelligence comes up in almost every conversation I have with manufacturing executives. They want to know how AI removes manual compliance process friction, enables faster, smarter program workflows, and anticipates business risk.
The answer: As connected supply chain data becomes more important, reliable product intelligence, robust data, and deep domain expertise are needed to make confident decisions.
AI is at the forefront of our design process, and we have already embedded it into key workflows, with Verdantix crediting three of our capabilities this year:
- AI-powered origin verification and emissions factors
- Agentic network submissions that pull usable data out of non-standard supplier formats
- AI-enabled product and supply chain assessments built for the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), and the EU Batteries Regulation
They all run on validated supplier and product data. That’s the part I wouldn’t skip. If you point AI at incomplete declarations, you will get answers faster but you will have no reliable way to catch the wrong ones. In the meantime, your inference costs will rise. Differentiation will be driven from quality part and supplier data and the regulatory and sustainability knowledge to understand and act on it.
Why The Assent Network?
The Assent Network is a shared ecosystem of product and supplier intelligence supporting requirements and teams across manufacturing organizations. We give companies the transparency and confidence they need to make proactive, risk-reducing business decisions faster. We are built on a differentiated core: product, part and supplier data, regulatory expertise, supplier engagement, and audit-ready execution.
Our platform works as a system of insight for product compliance and sustainability risk, embedding product intelligence directly into how decisions get made — inside Assent’s platform, inside a customer’s ERP or PLM, or wherever else the work actually happens.
I’m proud of our placement in this year’s Green Quadrant. We’ll keep investing in delivering accessible product intelligence so manufacturers can build products the world can trust.
Learn more about the Assent Network, or get in touch with our experts.
This information is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal or regulatory advice. The information is current as of the date of publication or send. Your organization remains responsible for confirming compliance obligations.
