New Report: 51 Vendors Compete in the Burgeoning Market of Enterprise Carbon Accounting (ECA) Software

Ethical MarketsGreen Prosperity

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Posted June 14, 2009
Global climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions have been identified as a key contributing factor to them. The measurement and reporting of GHG, often expressed in terms of carbon emissions, is essential to help prioritize sustainability investments and for stakeholder communication. Yearly disclosure of an organization’s carbon emissions is indispensable if an organization and its stakeholders are to accurately assess their progress towards reduction goals.

We call this emerging business process of calculating, managing, reporting, reducing and trading carbon emissions – Enterprise Carbon Accounting (ECA). In our most recent report, we focus on the data management aspects of ECA as our analysis shows that data management is a critical factor for success.

As investors, customers, employees, communities and governments insist on more accurate carbon emission data, organizations are beginning to track carbon emissions as rigorously as they track revenue and expenses. Just as organizations purchased financial accounting software to automate their process of financial data management, they will similarly invest in ECA software to automate the process of carbon data management.

In recent months, the ECA market has been validated with the entry of software giants Computer Associates and Microsoft, as well as SAP’s recent purchase of the two-year-old startup Clear Standards. The updated report identifies the seven current market leaders as determined by number of customer deployments, technology features, market vision and financial stability. The category leaders are: Enviance, ESS, IHS, Johnson Controls, PE International, ProcessMAP and SAP/Clear Standards.

The report, titled Enterprise Carbon Accounting: An Analysis of Organizational-Level Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reporting and a Review of Emerging GHG Software Products, was created as a guide for organizations that are considering calculating or currently tracking and reporting GHG emissions. The report provides detailed information and analysis on the state of the market and 51 vendors in total. According to the research, although less than 300 companies have purchased or deployed ECA software, it is continuing to grow as businesses find challenges with spreadsheets and realize the advantages of database-driven applications for accurate accounting. There are more than 3,000 organizations worldwide that have calculated their corporate carbon footprint using spreadsheets.

Key features of the report include:

Organizations expect increased carbon regulation, especially in the U.S. with a new presidential administration
Approximately 3,000 organizations worldwide have calculated Carbon emissions and approximately 300 have purchased ECA software
There are seven vendors that standout as leaders in the nascent market
The market for ECA software is still developing with less than 300 deployments
Despite the early stage of the current ECA market, more than 51 vendors offer software products
The number of organizations using ECA software is expected to quadruple in the next two years, driven by businesses that have not traditionally invested in environmental software
Organizations evaluating ECA software products in 2009 should consider 20 key software features in their vendor evaluation

Purchasing information and additional details about this report can be found here.

For more information on these and other GTM Research reports, please visit www.gtmresearch.com