The carbon software race begins
As demand for carbon accounting heats up, start-up software companies vie for the lead position. Over 50 new companies (and counting) have entered the race.
Tue, Sep 01 2009 at 12:21 AM EST
Image: Planet Metrics As I blogged last week, the field of carbon and energy management is growing exponentially and with climate legislation around the corner, we will soon witness a Carbon Boom as companies scramble to set up systems for monitoring their carbon emissions.
This boom will require some serious software. Measuring and monitoring carbon is a complex and tricky business, and a single leader in carbon management software has yet to emerge.
BizJournals.com reports this year over 50 carbon software companies have launched, pitting tiny software start-ups with patented technology against giants like Oracle and Siebel.
It is early in the game. Only 300 companies worldwide have purchased carbon software to date, but that number will quadruple in the next two years even if the U.S. doesn't pass cap-and-trade legislation. If it does, the number will be much, much higher.
Here's a short list of some of the more interesting companies in the race (most of them are based in the Bay area):
- Climate Earth which is focusing on the construction industry
- StakeWare is a global reporting system that includes social and environmental responsibility,
- Planet Metrics examines supply chain management through Rapid Carbon Modeling.
- AMEE uses an open source model that pulls in data from multiple sources.
- SAP offers a web-based subscription model that helps manage carbon initiatives in the company.
It will be interesting to see how the space develops in the next 12 months. I would certainly want to put some chips on Planet Metrics which managed to secure $2.3 million (during a recession) from one of the toughest and smartest venture funds firms in Silicon Valley — Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
The company expects a huge return on its investment by gaining a tiny sliver of the billions of dollars generated that could be generated through high-performance companies in a cap-and-trade system. Read more on Cleantech.com.
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Comments
John Clark | TRIRIGA
09/01/2009 16:44 PM
Earlier this year, TRIRIGA won top honors in AMR Research's Leadership Award for Sustainability for its enterprise sustainability software - TREES
"TRIRIGA’s TREES product provides a platform for measuring, tracking, and reporting energy usage and corresponding emissions from a real estate portfolio that provides an unprecedented and granulated window into asset efficiency, performance, and optimization. With a client list including more than one-third of the Fortune 100 companies,.... More
