The race to NetZero by 2050 is on and companies of all shapes and sizes are under pressure to make commitments to NetZero pathways. However, accurate emissions data for companies at all levels of the economic spectrum is lacking and, without this, NetZero targets are unreliable and unrealistic. Even those companies who are ‘adequately’ measuring and reporting their emissions are missing up to 80% of their total footprint – their indirect value chain or Scope 3 emissions – which cannot be accurately measured without accessible emissions data for companies across the economy.
Why do so few companies track their emissions? The answer is straightforward; there is currently no incentive to do it. Monitoring and tracking emissions can be complex and expensive so, unless forced to do so, most companies will not divert resources to it without a tangible business benefit in return.
At CienDos we are on a mission to simplify the collection of carbon emissions data and, ultimately, become the premier provider of qualified company emissions data, globally.
We are bringing to the market 3 innovative product offerings:
1. CDX – Carbon Data Exchange
The CienDos CDX Dataset will launch in Q2 2022. Currently this dataset contains emissions and environmental impact data for all companies registered in the UK. Our focus will now turn to extending this globally.
2. eMap – Emissions Measurement, Assessment and Pathway to NetZero
eMap is a freemium emissions data and supply chain mapping tool. It allows companies to:
- Measure & Map
Measure direct & purchased energy emissions in 4 simple steps (Scope 1 & 2).
Map entire value chain (upstream suppliers & downstream distributors) & automatically calculate indirect emissions (Scope 3).
- Assess
Benchmark performance against industry peers and competitors.
- Pathway
Generate a NetZero pathway based on their emissions, size, sector and location
3. eMap SLI – Sustainably Linked Incentivisation Module.
This product is aimed at service providers, offering B2B products and services (e.g. banks) and is an additional module within the eMap portal. eMap SLI enables B2B service providers to offer their customers sustainably linked products, at scale, and with the ability to track environmental reduction impact at its core. All data, monitoring, NetZero mapping and progress tracking is administered automatically by the portal.
Corporate consumers benefit from a monetary or commercial incentive against a product or service they consume in their day-to-day operations, in return for measuring and reporting their energy usage and emissions (Scope 1 & 2). Benefits are retained and/or enhanced based on performance against their auto-generated NetZero pathway and annual reduction targets.
Service Providers gain access to the emissions data of their customers, agents, and distributors (Scope 3 emissions) and, through the portal can provide scalable, cost effective sustainably linked products, the impact of which can be evidenced to regulators, government, shareholders, customers and employees.
Working initially with the UK banking industry, this will facilitate Sustainably Linked Lending and Green Asset Finance becoming a mainstream offering for the entire lending book and not just the reserve of the larger corporate customers.
The co-founders of CienDos have worked together for many years of various projects, both entrepreneurial endeavours and in the world of large corporates. Our unique combination of risk, regulatory, data and third party (supply chain) compliance experience resulted in CienDos.
With over a decade spent analysing risk across global corporate third-party networks, the founders have a deep understanding of the data gaps and information retrieval challenges companies face when trying to engage their supply and distribution chains. More recently, during our time at one of the word’s leading data and media companies, we gained experience in the fast-evolving ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) data requirements and understanding the current data gaps.
With this background and knowledge, accompanied by a member of the founding team’s decades of experience working in big data across the UK banking industry, we began focussing on environmental data and the developing regulatory and government reporting agenda in the UK. The UK is leading the global push to NetZero and, with these commitments now legally binding on the UK government, we are operating in an economy that is driving the demand for more transparent and accurate environmental and emissions data.
When we analysed the data available for companies globally, it became clear that there are significant gaps in both the measurement and reporting of emissions and other environmental data. The enterprise-level carbon accounting and management platforms and environmental consultancy services are aimed at the large multi-national companies and highly regulated sectors such as financial services and energy. These organisations can justify the financial and manpower investment required to implement a carbon management capability and the external consultation expertise needed to fully embed it. However, outside of this top echelon, there is a lack of imperative or incentive for companies across the rest of the economy to track their environmental impact. This presents a substantial problem against the backdrop of the global drive to NetZero by 2050. Due to the interconnectivity and complexity of global supply and distribution chains, to fully understand the current state of emissions and therefore create accurate NetZero targets and transition plans, a company needs to measure its entire carbon footprint – and this include the elusive Scope 3 (supply & distribution chain) emissions. To capture Scope 3, the large multi-nationals and regulated industries are heavily reliant on emissions and environmental data measured and report by companies up and down the economic spectrum.
We are developing a set of tools that will give every company of any shape and size an easy, accessible, and affordable way of measuring and reporting their environmental impact, starting with carbon emissions. The cornerstone product is a B2B sustainably linked incentivisation platform, enabling corporate B2B service providers to offer genuine commercial incentives against their products and gather that elusive Scope 3 data, without the overhead of managing the value chain engagement, data capture and validation or tracking each individual companies’ reduction performance. All our products are underpinned by a core dataset – the Carbon Data Exchange (CDX), which is now seeded with emissions data for all companies registered in the UK.
We are currently in the latter stages of developing our Proof of Concept (PoC) CDX Dataset, which is set to launch in Q2 2022. We will be moving to secure a round of seed funding in H1 2022, which will enable is to embark on a pilot implementation of our eMap platform, in partnership with a UK financial services institution.
One of the core aims of CienDos is to commercialise our product set as early as possible and grow a core development, data and product team here in Glasgow. As seasoned entrepreneurs, we are excited by the opportunity to be part of such an engaged and growth-focussed start-up ecosystem and look forward to playing an active role in the community.
The core team behind CienDos are experienced individuals with a history of creating, building and ultimately selling businesses within the technology and risk markets.
James Armstrong (CEO), Julia Salmond (COO) and Mark Dransfield (CDO) have worked together on various projects, the last of which, Cerico, was successfully sold to Dow Jones (part of News Corp) in 2018. Cerico was created to address the global third-party risk management market and following a successful integration led by James and Julia, is now one of the leading platforms that enterprises use to implement their third-party risk programmes. Customers include Volvo, Unilever, Treasury Wine Estates, Broadcom and Dropbox.
The team has particularly strong experience in the financial sector, where they have held senior roles in data, risk, strategy and operations. This provides strong insight into the challenges faced by the financial sector when building and implementing new products.
