How Climate Seal Is Building an AI-Native Workspace for Sustainability Professionals

The climate-tech startup is using AI agents to bring carbon accounting, environmental data management and compliance workflows into one platform, while keeping experts in control of critical decisions.

Sustainability professionals increasingly work with fragmented information: supplier declarations, product specifications, energy records, spreadsheets, emission-factor databases and regulatory documents. Turning these inputs into credible carbon assessments and compliance reports can require substantial manual effort, even when businesses use specialised software. For manufacturers and smaller companies without dedicated sustainability teams, the cost and complexity can become a barrier to demonstrating environmental performance.

Climate Seal, a climate-tech startup founded by Michael Ma, wants to address this problem by changing how sustainability work is carried out. Rather than building another tool for recording emissions, the company is developing an AI-native workspace in which specialised agents can process data, perform calculations, assess risks and prepare reports within connected project workflows.

The ambition reflects a broader shift in enterprise software: from applications that help professionals manage tasks to systems designed to execute parts of the work themselves.

From Carbon Accounting Software to AI Execution

Ma’s experience in China’s carbon management software industry helped shape the company’s direction. Before founding Climate Seal, he worked at a leading carbon management software company, where he met the startup’s product co-founder. They identified an opportunity to apply AI to a process that remained heavily dependent on specialist labour.

“Carbon accounting was, and still is, very labor-intensive. Even with existing software, much of the work relies on experts manually collecting data, building models, matching emission factors, and preparing reports. It’s slow, expensive, and difficult to scale. We believed AI could fundamentally change that. Just as tools like Claude are transforming how developers write code, we envision Climate Seal becoming the AI-native infrastructure for sustainability professionals, and eventually making these capabilities accessible to people without specialized expertise. We didn’t want to build just another carbon accounting tool. We wanted to rethink how sustainability work gets done,” Ma said while conversing with AsiaTechDaily.

Climate Seal’s platform supports a range of sustainability workflows, including product carbon footprint assessments, life-cycle assessments (LCA), corporate emissions accounting and supplier carbon data management. It is designed to help businesses organise environmental data, perform emissions calculations and prepare documentation in line with established frameworks such as ISO 14067 and the GHG Protocol, as well as selected regulatory requirements. Climate Seal’s distinction lies in how it approaches these processes. “Traditional carbon software helps people manage their work. Climate Seal actually helps do the work,” Ma said.

The platform combines AI agents for document processing, data organisation, carbon calculations, risk assessment and report preparation. Its objective is to reduce repetitive tasks while allowing professionals to review the underlying assumptions and results.

A Project-Centred Workspace for Complex Workflows

The company’s latest platform upgrade introduces a Project Workspace that brings files, data, conversations and tasks together. Its expanded AI Agent architecture is intended to maintain context across multi-step assignments, rather than treating every document or query as an isolated interaction. This matters because sustainability assessments involve interconnected decisions. A product carbon footprint, for example, may require information about materials, manufacturing processes, energy consumption, transport and suppliers. Data must be organised against an appropriate methodology before calculations and supporting documentation can be prepared.

Climate Seal’s agents are designed to process these inputs, identify gaps, match relevant emission factors and support the preparation of assessments. The company also introduced customizable Expert Rules, allowing professionals to guide workflows according to specific methodologies, regulatory requirements and their own expertise.

Ma said the system uses specialised agents alongside proprietary emission-factor matching technology, industry benchmarks and automated methodology checks. With sufficiently complete input data, the company says a product carbon footprint report can be prepared in two to four hours. Missing information and external verification can extend the overall process. The upgrade also reportedly improved task-processing efficiency by approximately 150% and reduced token consumption by 60% for equivalent tasks in the company’s internal testing.

Why Automation Needs an Evidence Trail

Automating calculations is only part of the challenge. In sustainability reporting, the credibility of an output depends on the quality of source data, the suitability of emission factors and the assumptions used in the methodology. Climate Seal addresses this through what it calls Self-Auditing Automation. While one part of the system performs accounting tasks, another checks for potential errors, missing information, double counting and methodological inconsistencies.

“Accuracy is something we take very seriously. In carbon accounting, a small methodological mistake can undermine the credibility of an entire report. That’s why we’ve developed what we call Self-Auditing Automation. While one part of the system performs the accounting work, another continuously checks for potential errors, data gaps, double counting, and methodological inconsistencies. We also maintain a traceable record of the calculations, sources, and decisions. And importantly, we keep humans in control. AI can prepare the work, but experts can review and make the final decisions,” Ma said.

The company says its benchmark library covers around 20,000 products, helping the system identify reference data and assess unusual results. It also cites an assessment by Bureau Veritas on a complex life-cycle assessment project as external validation. The scope of that assessment, however, should be distinguished from independent certification of the platform or all reports it generates.

Climate Seal’s platform maintains a traceable record of the source documents, emission factors, calculations, assumptions and review decisions behind each assessment. This allows sustainability professionals to examine how results were derived, verify the underlying data and review the methodology before submitting reports for independent third-party verification.

Expanding Beyond Product Carbon Footprints

Climate Seal’s platform direction extends beyond individual carbon assessments. Its current product positioning covers Scope 1, 2 and 3 accounting, supplier data, LCA and selected compliance workflows. The company is also developing its commercial reach through partnerships with sustainability consultancies, certification organisations and industry participants.

Asia is a priority for the company because of the region’s role in global manufacturing and supply chains. Ma identified Singapore, Japan, India and Southeast Asia as markets where Climate Seal sees demand for practical compliance solutions. Rather than approaching every manufacturer individually, the company plans to work with local partners who already understand their markets and customers.

For Climate Seal, carbon accounting is an entry point into a larger opportunity. Ma sees a common challenge across product compliance, carbon transactions and green financing: businesses need to demonstrate environmental performance, while other parties need reliable information on which to base decisions.

“Today, that process is fragmented, expensive, and largely manual. Our long-term vision is to build the trust infrastructure for the green economy, where environmental data can be verified, accepted, and reused across different applications,” he said.

Realising that ambition will depend on faster AI processing. Climate Seal will need to demonstrate that its workflows remain reliable across different industries, methodologies and regulatory environments, while building trust among consultants, manufacturers and independent reviewers. Its AI-native workspace is an attempt to establish that foundation. If the company can combine execution speed with transparent evidence and professional oversight, it could help make sustainability compliance more accessible without treating credibility as an afterthought.

Quick Takeaways

• Climate Seal is building an AI-native workspace to automate sustainability and carbon accounting workflows.
• Its AI agents handle data processing, emission-factor matching, carbon calculations, risk assessment and report preparation.
• The platform’s latest upgrade introduces a Project Workspace, an enhanced AI Agent architecture and customizable Expert Rules.
• Its Self-Auditing Automation approach combines automated checks, traceable calculations and human oversight to improve reporting credibility.
• Climate Seal aims to expand beyond product carbon footprints into life-cycle assessment, supplier data management and broader sustainability compliance.
• The company is targeting markets including Singapore, Japan, India and Southeast Asia through partnerships with local sustainability consultancies and industry organisations.