Sidetrade Cuts Cloud Costs 20% and Carbon Intensity 16.7% by Owning Its AI Infrastructure
23 Jul 2026
AI-native Order-to-Cash company Sidetrade has published its 2025 CSR Report, showing a rare combination for the sector: double-digit revenue growth alongside a falling carbon footprint, driven largely by its decision to own and operate its own infrastructure rather than rent capacity from public cloud providers.
Growth and Emissions Moving in Opposite Directions
Sidetrade, listed on Euronext Growth (ALBFR.PA), closed 2025 with revenue of €61.4 million, up 14% at constant currency and driven by 20% growth in subscription revenue. EBITDA reached €13.4 million, a 22% margin.
Over the same period, the company's carbon intensity per invoice processed fell 16.7%, following a 14.6% decline in 2024. On a like-for-like basis, excluding its SHS Viveon acquisition, total greenhouse gas emissions dropped 12%, to 1,886 tons of CO2 equivalent.
The report, aligned with the voluntary CSRD VSME standard, positions this as evidence that AI-driven growth and a shrinking environmental footprint are not mutually exclusive, provided the underlying infrastructure is managed deliberately.
Owning Infrastructure Instead of Renting It
Most software vendors rent computing capacity from major public cloud providers. Sidetrade has taken a different path since its inception, operating its own cloud infrastructure and hosting its proprietary Data Lake on company-managed servers rather than relying on generic public AI models.
That Data Lake is substantial in scale: it concentrates close to $9 trillion in B2B transactions and payment-behaviour data from 42.5 million buying companies worldwide. Sidetrade's primary data centres run on 100% renewable energy.
In 2025, the company moved to a unified private cloud and applied a FinOps (financial operations) discipline to its infrastructure spending. Together, these steps cut cloud infrastructure costs by more than 20% in a single year. The average energy efficiency rating (PUE) of its data centres also improved, falling to 1.29, a 7% year-on-year reduction.
Olivier Novasque, CEO and Founder of Sidetrade, framed the strategy in broader terms in the CSR report:
In business, human intelligence has never operated alone. Writing, the printing press, mechanical calculation, then digital technology each augmented it in turn. Each technology redefined what an operator produces in an hour. Artificial intelligence extends this trajectory at an unprecedented pace. The useful debate is not about the principle, but about the conditions for collaboration between human and machine. […] One day, protecting machines will matter as much as protecting nature. Our fate will be tied to theirs. Sidetrade's CSR strategy is preparing for that convergence.
Security, Governance and AI Act Alignment
Digital responsibility forms the second pillar of Sidetrade's strategy. In 2025, the company reinforced its SOC 1 and SOC 2 compliance by obtaining Type II attestations and renewed its ISO/IEC 27001 certification, which it has held since 2019.
Sidetrade also finalised a responsible AI policy aligned with the EU AI Act and completed impact assessments across all of its AI systems, with independent third-party validation scheduled for 2026. The company reported no data breaches during the year.
Laurent Pontier, CTO Chief of Staff at Sidetrade, said:
In a world where data has become the most strategic capital, and AI the new energy powering companies and their financial processes, cybersecurity and operational security are not optional. They are absolute commitments, inseparable from the promise we make to our customers. We are redefining the standard for trust in the Order-to-Cash field by placing the protection of our customers' most sensitive information at the center of every decision, every line of code, every process.
People, Talent and Governance
The report also highlights workforce and governance metrics for 2025:
- 61% of participants in the company's "By Your Side" mentoring programme were women
- 44.4% women representation on the Executive Committee, with a gender pay gap limited to 3%
- 99% of staff on permanent contracts, with zero workplace accidents recorded
- An Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) of 8 out of 10
- 100% of employees acknowledged the Code of Conduct and completed anti-corruption training, with no violations, corruption incidents or GDPR complaints reported
CSR governance is overseen by a dedicated committee reporting to the Board of Directors, which reviews progress quarterly. A confidential whistleblowing line is available to both employees and suppliers.
Sidetrade's AI-driven operating model, which pairs human staff with autonomous agents across its processes, also won The Hackett Group's 2026 Innovation Award.
Philippe Gangneux, Chief Financial Officer and CSR Ambassador at Sidetrade, said:
We are convinced that tomorrow's performance will be economic, technological, and responsible all at once. AI-native is becoming a lever for sustainable growth, one that must combine value creation with a reduction in environmental impact.
Third-Party Recognition
Sidetrade's 2025 performance was independently assessed by two ESG ratings bodies:
- EthiFinance, a European ESG rating agency, awarded the Group its Gold medal
- EcoVadis reaffirmed its Silver medal and noted a 16-point improvement on the responsible-purchasing criterion, placing Sidetrade in the top 15% of rated companies across all industries
The company has also committed to joining the Pledge to Net Zero initiative, aligning its emissions-reduction targets with climate science and the goals of the Paris Agreement.
What's Next
Looking ahead to 2026, Sidetrade says it will focus on reducing Scope 3 emissions, the largest component of its carbon footprint, as part of its longer-term "O2C Intelligence 2030" strategy, which aims to demonstrate that economic performance and sustainable value creation can advance together.
Key Figures
Metric | 2025 Result |
| Revenue | €61.4 million (+14% at constant currency) |
| Subscription revenue growth | +20% |
| EBITDA margin | 22% |
| Carbon intensity per invoice | -16.7% (after -14.6% in 2024) |
| GHG emissions (like-for-like) | -12%, to 1,886 tCO2e |
| Cloud infrastructure cost reduction | +20% savings |
| Data centre energy efficiency (PUE) | 1.29 (-7% year-on-year) |
| EcoVadis rating | Silver (top 15% of rated companies) |
| EthiFinance rating | Gold |
About Sidetrade
Sidetrade (Euronext Growth: ALBFR.PA) is an AI-native Order-to-Cash (O2C) company. Its platform combines O2C applications, autonomous AI agents, and Aimie IQ, a natural-language intelligence interface that helps global organisations accelerate cash generation. Sidetrade operates the world's largest proprietary O2C Data Lake, built on $9 trillion in B2B transactions and 42.5 million buyer entities. This data trains domain-expert AI models that continuously monitor, reason, decide and act autonomously across the O2C cycle. Sidetrade serves businesses in 85 countries with 450 employees across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.
Sidetrade's full 2025 CSR Report is available at sidetrade.com and in the ESG section of its Euronext page.
