Businesses Can Now Get to Net Zero Carbon with Carbon Analytics

COP26 is just a few months away. According to Forbes, 21%of the largest public companies have committed to achieving Net Zero and customer demands for buying from planet-friendly businesses are growing rapidly. As a business, where do you start? Carbon Analytics (https://www.co2analytics.com/), a growing technology startup, answers exactly that.

Based in the UK and the US, it provides accurate carbon measurement and reporting tools so that a baseline can be set and progress can be tracked against it. The company has helped 24% of its customers reach Net Zero by measuring and offsetting their footprints. They offer a cloud-based solution that uses WRI’s GHG protocol standards, integrates with accounting software like Xero, QuickBooks and even Excel to give automated reports on corporate carbon footprints.

Michael Thornton was designing renewable water and energy projects across the world when he realised the need for current business structures to account for the resources used from nature. While working on his MBA from the University of Oxford, his vision was to create a solution that plays within the market itself.

He, with a small team of professionals with business consulting, carbon and banking backgrounds, developed the right methodology for estimating carbon footprints based on financial transactions. Winning the Future Cloud of the EIT Digital Idea Challenge with top honours was the validation that accelerated his entrepreneurial journey. Launched in 2016, Carbon Analytics was the first company to use a consistent dataset in the form of financial data to automate footprinting for the business and the entire supply chain.

After a successful pilot of the footprint calculator involving more than 1000 companies, the Carbon Analytics platform now offers automated scope 1, 2, and 3 reports for businesses of all sizes. So far, the company has raised funds in the form of grants from the governments of the UK and EU and seed funding from US-based angel investors in telecom, traceability and other industries. While the company counts Diageo, China Air and ClimateCare among its customers, Carbon Analytics is one of the few certifiable carbon reporting solutions for companies large and small.

On COP26, the pandemic and carbon accounting, the CEO, Michael says “Our dream is to reach the smallest and largest businesses of the world and enable them to get to Net Zero. Rather than dampen enthusiasm for tackling climate change, the pandemic only seems to have accelerated concern and action by businesses and their customers.

COP26 will be another step in the march towards fully integrating carbon impact into the world’s management systems – and finally managing them. The question remains, however, can we humans do it fast enough to save the world we know?  We and the amazing companies we work with are moving as fast as we can to ensure we do.”