Carbon Management Solutions: Business Value through a New Lens

Around the world, changing regulatory and market forces signal the emergence of a low-carbon economy, with growing bottom-line impacts for energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Yet many businesses are just beginning to understand their carbon footprint and the strategic importance of carbon as an asset or a liability. A new information systems category, carbon management solutions, enables businesses to analyze and monitor energy use and greenhouse gas emissions so that they can optimize their response. This market is young and fragmented, with many vendors and a wide range of capabilities for analysis, monitoring, reporting, financial management, and carbon trading. In this report, we provide a critical overview of the business drivers, concepts, and capabilities behind corporate carbon management. We classify and profile thirteen vendor solutions, along with key market trends. We also recommend a course of action for companies considering implementation of new carbon management capabilities.