New energy transition marketplace aims to decarbonize buildings as climate strategy
The era of carbon offsets is over. That’s the message from startup WattCarbon, which recently debuted its energy transition marketplace, a first-of-its-kind platform for leveraging building decarbonization as a clear climate strategy. The company has created a tool that enables any organization to see immediate and traceable reductions in fossil fuel use and to avoid the pitfalls of low-value carbon offset markets.
WattCarbon enables organizations with robust climate goals to achieve immediate emissions impacts by purchasing the Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) generated from building decarbonization projects. The earnings are then returned to companies on the front lines of the energy transition to help them deploy more projects at lower cost for consumers while hiring and training more clean-energy workers. Buyers are allocated the EACs from these projects, which range from building electrification, to renewable energy, to demand response, that are to be retired against Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.
“Global warming is the direct result of burning fossil fuels. The era of carbon offsets is over,” said WattCarbon founder and CEO McGee Young. “To avoid a catastrophic climate disaster, we need a massive reduction in emissions—today. Buildings are the most direct and accessible path to achieving near-term carbon reduction goals and will be integral to long term resilience strategies. The technology to decarbonize buildings exists and is ready to be installed. We simply need to go faster.”
Open Source Data Collection
WattCarbon’s market is powered by a highly advanced, hourly energy tracking platform that provides buyers with transparent measurement and verification of their impact. The platform aggregates data from emissions, metered consumption and production, along with weather and other related data, and converts it all into carbon savings using standardized, open-source methods.
“We are taking known energy data and combining it with known emissions data to create the most verifiable impact measurement available,” added Young. “Impact-focused buyers are looking for climate solutions that they can trust. Our platform gives them transparency and confidence that their purchases eliminate emissions and helps accelerate the clean energy transition.”
The company’s Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) philosophy is grounded in principles of open source. The company is a member of LF Energy and a contributor to the Carbon Data Specification Consortium and the OpenEEmeter, projects hosted by LF Energy to ensure access to data required for hourly carbon emissions accounting.
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