EcoFreight vs Pledge (now part of Blue Yonder)
Pledge Earth Technologies was acquired by Blue Yonder in May 2025. This page describes the comparison as buyers encounter it today: a standalone freight emissions API on one side, and an enterprise supply chain management platform module on the other. We keep this page live because buyers still search “Pledge.io freight emissions” — and they should know the landscape changed.
The TL;DR
- Pick EcoFreight if: you want a standalone freight emissions API with a public free tier, self-serve sign-up, a published latency target, and a per-shipment audit trail with a stable
calculation_id. - Pick Blue Yonder (the home of former Pledge) if: you are already a Blue Yonder customer or are evaluating an enterprise SCM platform where emissions calculation is one feature among many. Pricing is opaque and the motion is enterprise-sales-led.
- The Pledge brand as you knew it pre-2025 no longer sells separately. The product has been absorbed into Blue Yonder's broader supply chain offering. All pledge.io URLs now redirect to blueyonder.com.
An honest note on this comparison
- Blue Yonder announced the acquisition of Pledge Earth Technologies Ltd. on 30 April 2025, effective ~1 May 2025. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- All
pledge.ioURLs — pricing, methodology, about, customers, newsroom — now 301-redirect to blueyonder.com. - The legal entity Pledge Earth Technologies Ltd. was absorbed into Blue Yonder.
- A separately-buyable Pledge API post-acquisition has not been publicly documented; access today appears to be via Blue Yonder's platform.
- We are keeping this page because the search query still exists. If you arrived here looking for “Pledge.io freight emissions,” the rest of this page is the most accurate description we can offer of what the buying decision looks like in 2026.
Feature comparison
Three columns, because the choice in 2026 is not actually two-way. EcoFreight is on the left; Pledge as it existed pre-acquisition is in the middle as a reference point for buyers who remember the standalone product; and Blue Yonder, the company that now owns what Pledge built, is on the right.
| Feature | EcoFreight | Pledge (pre-acquisition, for reference) | Blue Yonder Today |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standalone freight emissions API? | Yes. | Yes, pre-2025. | Not as a separate product; absorbed into the SCM platform. |
| Self-serve sign-up? | Yes. | Yes. | No — enterprise sales motion. |
| Public free tier? | 1,000 requests / month. | 14-day free trial, no public free tier. | Not applicable. |
| Smart Freight Centre accredited? | Not yet; on the 2026 roadmap. | Yes (pre-acquisition); post-acquisition status not confirmed publicly. | Marketed as “accredited” in the acquisition press release; status not directly confirmed via the SFC site. |
| GLEC version? | GLEC Framework v3.2. | “GLEC framework,” specific version not publicly stated. | “GLEC framework,” specific version not publicly stated. |
| ISO 14083? | Yes — response carries the ISO 14083 data quality tier. | Yes, alignment confirmed. | Marketed as compliant. |
| Methodology changelog? | Public, dated, at /methodology/changelog. | Not separately published. | Not separately published. |
Per-shipment calculation_id? | Yes — stable, in every API response. | Not publicly documented. | Not publicly documented. |
| Downloadable factor table? | Yes — /data/glec-factors.csv (CC BY 4.0). | Not offered as a standalone download. | Not offered as a standalone download. |
| Published latency target? | Under 50 ms p50 on the calculate endpoint. | Not published as an SLA-grade figure. | Not published as an SLA-grade figure. |
| Founders' background? | Engineering and freight emissions methodology. | Fintech — ex-Revolut, ex-Freetrade. Not freight forwarding by background. | Enterprise SCM. Panasonic-owned, multi-decade supply chain software heritage. |
| Funding and scale? | Bootstrapped. | ~$23.8M raised across seed and Series A; ~24 employees at acquisition. | Multi-billion-dollar enterprise supply chain vendor. |
Where Pledge (pre-acquisition) had the edge
Smart Freight Centre accreditation. Pledge was on the SFC accredited tool list pre-acquisition. We are not, yet — that work is on the 2026 roadmap. If your assurance provider treats SFC accreditation as a checklist item for the Scope 3 Category 4 audit, the pre-acquisition Pledge product had the answer in hand. The post-acquisition status of that accreditation is something we have not been able to verify directly via the SFC site, though Blue Yonder's acquisition press release describes the capability as “accredited and traceable.”
Established freight-forwarder customer base. Pledge had a real customer list of European freight forwarders pre-acquisition — Davies Turner, Europa Worldwide, Ligentia, Unsworth, XPand Logistics, Synergie Canada, Cargo Overseas — plus a WCAworld network partnership. For a buyer whose procurement committee values reference-able peers in the same vertical, that named-customer depth was a real advantage.
Venture capitalisation. $23.8M raised across 27 investors, with a 24-person team at acquisition — well-capitalised for the niche. These edges all now belong to Blue Yonder, but accessing them requires Blue Yonder's enterprise sales motion rather than the standalone Pledge product.
Where EcoFreight has the edge today (against Blue Yonder's emissions module)
Self-serve sign-up with a public free tier. 1,000 freight requests a month, no credit card, no sales conversation. Buyers can call the API against their own sample shipments before any commercial discussion. Blue Yonder's motion is enterprise sales; ours is built for a developer opening the docs at 11pm.
Standalone freight API. You do not need to adopt an enterprise SCM platform to use EcoFreight. The /calculate endpoint is the product, and the response is the contract. If your buying motion is “I want a freight emissions API,” not “I want a supply chain platform that includes emissions,” the scope of what you are committing to is meaningfully different.
Public methodology changelog with dated factor changes. Every change to the EcoFreight emission factor table, methodology rules, and API response shape is versioned and dated at /methodology/changelog. Auditors and methodology leads on the buyer side can read the same source we run the API from, before any contract conversation.
Per-shipment stable calculation_id in every API response. Every freight calculation we return carries an immutable identifier that the auditor can trace back to the methodology version and factor table that produced it. Reversible from the changelog, all the way to the GLEC v3.2 factor row.
Downloadable factor table at /data/glec-factors.csv. Published under CC BY 4.0. The buyer is not locked into our compute path; the factors are auditable independently and can be reviewed before any commercial discussion.
Published p50 latency target. Under 50 ms p50 on the freight calculate endpoint. Quote-embed and BOL-attach use cases need the carbon call to land inside the page render, and we publish the latency target as a first-class metric rather than treating it as an internal SLA.
Decision guidance
If you were on Pledge pre-2025: your account is now a Blue Yonder customer. Pricing and roadmap decisions sit with Blue Yonder. Whether you stay or migrate depends on how Blue Yonder's pricing renegotiation lands at your next renewal and on whether SCM platform alignment is acceptable for your team. Worth asking explicitly: is the accreditation that mattered to you pre-acquisition still in the same place under the new ownership, and what does the API access look like post absorption.
If you were considering Pledge for the first time in 2026: that is now a Blue Yonder enterprise conversation. A standalone Pledge API is no longer available. If your evaluation expected the pre-acquisition self-serve product, that path closed in May 2025.
If your buying motion is “I want a standalone freight emissions API with self-serve sign-up”: EcoFreight is the option that currently matches the motion. The honest gap on our side is accreditation timing; everything else in the “standalone freight API with public access” column is what we build.
An honest gap on our side
We do not have Smart Freight Centre accreditation in hand today; it is on the 2026 roadmap. That was Pledge's strongest credential pre-acquisition, and remains a reason to consider Blue Yonder's heritage Pledge capability if your CSRD or CDP auditor specifically requires the SFC accredited tool list as the trust anchor. Our public methodology, dated changelog, downloadable factor table, and per-shipment calculation_id are how we offer a defensible audit trail in the meantime — but we will not pretend the accreditation timing gap does not exist.
A note on Blue Yonder
Blue Yonder is a legitimate large enterprise vendor — Panasonic-owned, with a multi-decade supply chain software heritage. Their acquisition press release describes the heritage Pledge capability as conformant with the GLEC framework and ISO 14083. The difference between us is not credibility; it is product shape and buying motion. Theirs is a platform that includes emissions calculation among many features, sold through enterprise sales. Ours is a freight emissions API with self-serve sign-up. Both are honest answers to different buyer questions.
Three questions to decide
- Do you want a standalone freight emissions API, or an enterprise SCM platform that includes emissions? If the answer is the former, EcoFreight matches the shape. If the answer is the latter, Blue Yonder is a more natural fit.
- Will you evaluate the API before a commercial conversation? If yes, our public 500/mo free tier matters and Blue Yonder's enterprise-sales motion will feel slower. If your procurement runs through a managed enterprise cycle, the free tier matters less.
- Does your auditor require the SFC accredited tool list today? If yes, Blue Yonder's heritage Pledge capability is worth a conversation about current accreditation status. If GLEC-aligned plus a documented methodology trail is acceptable, EcoFreight clears the bar.
Sources
- Blue Yonder press release announcing the acquisition (April 2025) — confirms acquisition date, methodology framing (“accredited and traceable emissions calculations,” GLEC framework and ISO 14083 conformance): blueyonder.com/media/2025/blue-yonder-acquires-pledge
- BusinessWire announcement (30 April 2025) — confirms acquisition announcement date and that financial terms were not disclosed.
- TechCrunch original Pledge coverage (22 October 2021) — context on pre-acquisition founders David de Picciotto, Thomas Lucas, and André Mohamed, and the early funding round structure.
- Public Companies House filings (2021-2024) — confirm Pledge Earth Technologies Ltd.'s UK incorporation, headcount, and the founding team's pre-Pledge roles at Revolut and Freetrade.
- Smart Freight Centre accredited tools list — page returned a 403 during the fact-check window; post-acquisition status of the heritage Pledge accreditation has not been directly verifiable from the SFC site at the time of writing.
- EcoFreight methodology and factor downloads: /methodology, changelog, and the downloadable factor table at /data/glec-factors.csv.
Want to test EcoFreight on your real shipments?
Email hello@ecofreight.co with the lanes and monthly volume you want to evaluate. We will set up an extended free trial against your real shipment file and walk you through the reconciliation against whatever you run today.