Net Zero Compare

Watershed: Streamlining Sustainability and Carbon Management for Climate Leadership

Written by Karol Kaczmarek
Published March 24th, 2024
9 min read
Updated July 12th, 2024

Summary

Watershed offers technology solutions for companies looking to measure, reduce, and report their carbon footprint. Watershed’s platform is designed for ease of use, enabling companies to track their progress towards climate goals.
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Details

Name
Watershed
Date of establishment
2019-01

Deep dive

Watershed offers technology solutions for companies looking to measure, reduce, and report their carbon footprint. Watershed’s platform is designed for ease of use, enabling companies to track their progress towards climate goals.

ADVANCING CORPORATE CLIMATE ACTION: AN OVERVIEW OF WATERSHED’S CAPABILITIES

Watershed has emerged as a leading enterprise sustainability platform, offering comprehensive solutions for businesses intent on minimizing their carbon footprint. The platform is engineered to assist companies in accurately measuring, reporting, and reducing their emissions, facilitating a streamlined approach to achieving sustainable operational practices. Through its suite of tools, Watershed enables organizations to delineate their carbon footprint, adhere to international climate disclosure standards, and establish tangible objectives for genuine emissions reduction.

The organization is lauded for its dedication to enhancing the utility of carbon data, equipping businesses with the detailed insights required for making substantial strides in emissions mitigation. A distinctive feature of Watershed’s methodology is its emphasis on scrutinizing emissions throughout the supply chain—a frequently overlooked component of corporate carbon footprints. This holistic perspective fosters a deeper comprehension and more effective reduction of emissions.

Significantly advancing in its measurement techniques, Watershed boasts a refined database containing over 500,000 emissions factors, affording companies a solid foundation for evaluating their environmental impact. The platform also offers mechanisms for actively involving suppliers in data collection, thereby enabling precise emissions analysis down to the product level. The acquisition of VitalMetrics and the CEDA database further enhances Watershed’s emissions factor repository, now encompassing 95% of worldwide emissions across 148 nations, illustrating the company’s dedication to delivering carbon measurements.

Endorsements from prominent climate action figures such as Al Gore, Christiana Figueres, and Mark Carney underscore Watershed’s reputable standing and the confidence placed in it by the climate action community. These accolades reflect the company’s effectiveness in fostering corporate engagement in climate initiatives.

Furthermore, Watershed’s recent procurement of a $100M Series C funding round, led by Greenoaks, positions it as the most valuable climate software company on the global stage. This investment aims to bolster the company’s ambition to hasten corporate climate efforts, particularly within Europe, indicating a robust demand for its services among leading global corporations. This trajectory highlights Watershed’s pivotal role in empowering businesses to navigate the complexities of carbon reduction and sustainability.

WATERSHED’S SERVICES FOR CARBON MANAGEMENT

Watershed has developed a robust framework to support businesses in their journey towards sustainability, characterized by an advanced data infrastructure, an extensive emissions factor database, and a network of strategic partnerships. The foundation of Watershed’s approach lies in the provision of high-quality, actionable data, augmented by expertise from a cadre of preeminent climate and policy specialists. The company’s offerings encompass a broad spectrum of services, designed to enable management of carbon emissions. These services are organized into three principal topics: Measurement, Reporting, and Action, each tailored to facilitate critical aspects of environmental stewardship.

Measurement: Watershed equips organizations with tools to delineate their carbon footprint promptly and accurately, leveraging a premier climate data platform. This process involves an analysis of emissions throughout an entity’s operations, extending to the supply chain, to derive a detailed carbon footprint assessment. Watershed prioritizes the generation of actionable carbon data to empower businesses with the insights necessary for effectuating significant emissions reductions. This segment of their service facilitates a nuanced understanding of emissions at the product level and integrates supplier engagement tools for the gathering of data.

Reporting: Watershed’s platform supports entities in the preparation and submission of climate disclosures, aligned with global regulatory mandates. Their reporting service is crafted to ensure adherence to the most current regulatory frameworks, offering audit-grade climate data. The tools provided are developed by a team specializing in policy, climate science, and data analysis, simplifying the reporting process and ensuring compliance with standards such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) framework, among others.

Action: Understanding an organization’s carbon footprint is the first step; Watershed also guides companies in setting and achieving emissions reduction targets, tracking progress towards tangible decarbonization. This includes advice on formulating and executing reduction strategies, establishing goals like achieving net-zero emissions by a specified timeline, and access to in-house climate experts for personalized support. Moreover, Watershed facilitates direct procurement of energy from renewable sources and offers a credible marketplace for carbon removal. This segment highlights innovative solutions for extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and ensuring its secure, long-term sequestration.

NAVIGATING CARBON MANAGEMENT WITH WATERSHED: A PLATFORM OVERVIEW

Watershed functions as an advanced software solution tailored for corporations aiming to measure, report, and mitigate their carbon emissions. This section elucidates the operational dynamics of Watershed’s platform based on the array of services it purports to offer, as well as descriptions provided:

Platform Accessibility: Watershed grants enterprises access to its sustainability platform, designed with user accessibility at its core. Users are expected to log into the platform to employ various software tools geared towards efficient carbon management. The interface is crafted to be intuitive, enabling navigation across different functionalities dedicated to the measurement, reporting, and implementation of carbon emissions reduction strategies.

Measurement Capabilities: Within the platform, users find a suite of tools aimed at outlining the carbon footprint of their entire operations, including intricate supply chain analyses. This process entails data collection and analysis to yield an accurate depiction of the company’s carbon output. Watershed’s robust data engine plays a crucial role in this phase, facilitating data aggregation while guiding the engagement with suppliers for data accrual from all relevant parties.

Reporting Features: The platform simplifies the preparation and submission of climate disclosures, aligning with international regulatory norms. Equipped with tailored templates and reporting tools, Watershed makes compliance with prevailing regulations and standards more straightforward, enabling organizations to produce audit-ready reports effortlessly.

Strategy and Reduction Initiatives: Post-assessment of their carbon footprint, Watershed aids organizations in setting feasible emissions reduction targets, alongside developing actionable strategies for their attainment. This component encompasses guidance on transitioning to renewable energy sources, engaging in carbon sequestration projects, and other decarbonization efforts. Additionally, Watershed incorporates a marketplace feature, offering access to a selection of vetted clean power and sustainability projects for investment.

Expert Support and Consultation: While the platform is designed to empower companies to autonomously manage their carbon footprint, Watershed complements its software solutions with professional support from its team of climate experts. These specialists are available to assist with data interpretation, strategy formulation, and ongoing guidance to ensure adherence to sustainability objectives, providing an essential support layer to navigate the intricacies of carbon management effectively.

In summary, Watershed integrates the practicality of a software platform with the depth of expert consultation, facilitating a dual approach where companies can leverage both digital tools and professional insights to foster robust and accurate carbon management practices.

BROADENING THE HORIZON: WATERSHED’S ROLE IN UNIVERSAL CARBON MANAGEMENT

Watershed’s provision of services via its software platform enables corporations to autonomously conduct their carbon accounting and develop reduction strategies. Nonetheless, the company extends beyond software provision by offering support and guidance. This includes the availability of in-house climate experts and a consortium of advisors, aimed at facilitating the intricacies of carbon management and assisting businesses in achieving their sustainability ambitions.

The utility of Watershed’s services is not confined to large enterprises alone, despite the visibility of such corporations among their clientele. The adaptability of Watershed’s software solutions renders them suitable for businesses across the spectrum, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The emphasis on detailed data collection and provision of actionable insights is equally advantageous for SMEs endeavoring to comprehend and curtail their carbon emissions, as it is for larger entities. In an era increasingly characterized by rigorous climate disclosure mandates and a universal tilt towards sustainability, Watershed’s platform emerges as a pivotal asset for companies of all sizes looking to transition towards greener operations.

Watershed’s ongoing expansion and its investment in enhancing the platform’s functionalities underscore a dedication to catering to a diverse client base. The growing imperative for corporate climate action across various sectors underscores the significance of solutions like Watershed’s. These developments indicate that such platforms are not merely beneficial but are becoming indispensable tools for companies dedicated to sustainable practices, irrespective of their scale.

GLOBAL REACH, LOCAL IMPACT: WATERSHED’S EXPANSIVE COMMITMENT TO CLIMATE ACTION

Watershed stands as a beacon for global sustainability efforts, offering its services and platform to a diverse array of companies around the world, transcending geographical boundaries that extend beyond Europe and North America. The platform is crafted to meet the demands of organizations that prioritize sustainability at the highest echelons of their governance. The infusion of $100M in Series C funding into Watershed is earmarked for propelling the climate economy forward, with a significant portion dedicated to reinforcing their European operations. Nonetheless, the wide-ranging customer base and the global relevance of their offerings underscore the availability of their solutions to businesses across various nations.

The strategic acquisition of CEDA by Watershed further accentuates their commitment to facilitating global climate initiatives. CEDA’s status as the preeminent multi-regional emissions database, encompassing 95% of global emissions across 148 countries, empowers Watershed with the capability to deliver nuanced emissions factors and carbon accounting tools to organizations worldwide. This move signifies Watershed’s dedication to rendering support for global climate action through a platform equipped to handle the intricacies of emissions measurement and reporting on an international scale.

Watershed’s collaborative ecosystem, featuring alliances with leading advisory firms and organizations, illustrates their aptitude for offering support across diverse geographies. Collaborations with esteemed entities like KPMG, Accenture, and ERM, alongside engagement in the Policy Advisory Board led by Mark Carney, highlight Watershed’s extensive geographic coverage and their proficiency in liaising with multinational enterprises and smaller entities across various legal frameworks.

In the face of the ubiquitous challenge posed by climate change and considering the global nature of supply chains and corporate operations, Watershed’s solutions are tailored to be universally applicable and invaluable. This global orientation is vital for entities operating across multiple nations or those with international supply chains, aiming to measure and mitigate their carbon footprint comprehensively.

Moreover, Watershed’s disclosed starting price point of $2100 per month indicates the presence of multiple service tiers, potentially offering a spectrum of features and support levels suited to diverse business requirements. It is typical for enterprise-level software platforms like Watershed to present a variety of pricing strategies, including customized offerings for larger clients necessitating a more tailored approach to their climate action strategies.


Karol Kaczmarek
Written by:
Karol Kaczmarek
Co-founder of Net Zero Compare
Karol is a seasoned entrepreneur and co-founder of A&K Ventures OÜ. With a strong foundation in quantitative economics, he has a proven track record in strategic consulting, real estate, and global business expansion. Karol is dedicated to leveraging innovative technologies and creative business strategies to drive growth and transformation in every venture.