The world of sustainability has changed quite a bit since Scope 5 first got off the ground more than a decade ago.
Founded in 2011, the Seattle-based company provides sustainability data management tools to businesses. It was acquired in September by by Environ Energy, a 2-year-old energy consulting and management firm based in New York City.
When Yoram Bernet helped launch Scope 5, companies only reported their sustainability metrics when compelled by investors, he said in an interview with GeekWire.
Now, times have changed. Many companies including Microsoft and Amazon have set ambitious carbon-neutral goals. U.S. states, including Washington, are auctioning off carbon pollution permits. And there is an increased urgency to avoid a global warming catastrophe.
Companies also started learning about the benefits of carbon tracking, Bernet said, such as lower costs from efficiently-managed resources.
Bernet believes that demand will continue to grow.
“Reporting is just the starting point,” Bernet said. “What companies want now is analytics, targets, and defined projects that will help them save carbon and money.”
Scope 5 helps companies measure their Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions, defined by industry accounting standards. Scope 1 are considered “direct” emissions, such as emissions from factories or vehicles. Scope 2 and 3 are “indirect,” such as the electricity a company uses to power facilities, or emissions from jets used for business travel.
Scope 5’s clients are primarily medium to large enterprises and span various industries like consumer-packaged goods, logistics, energy, utilities, consulting companies, and manufacturing.
Bernet said the next step for carbon emissions tracking is to identify the “carbon cost of a product.”
“The carbon cost of a product is an aggregation of every node in the supply chain it’s been through,” he said. “The secret to that is solving the Scope 3 conundrum, which requires a lot of data interchange.”
Bernet said Scope 5’s precision, accuracy, and breadth of analytics differentiates it from competitors like IBM and Workiva. Scope 5 also focuses on carbon, which made it appealing to Environ Energy.
In January, Environ Energy acquired ISOS group, another ESG disclosure service provider.
Scope 5 kept its brand through the acquisition. It plans to add more applications to its software and help automate more energy procurement processes.
“The beauty of merging with Environ is that we have a bigger team of consultants with a diverse set of experiences,” said Bernet.
