Climate change happens in the physical world and you might be wondering how does software has anything to do with it. Turns out, just like what Andreesen Horowitz said, software is eating the world. In the face of an impending climate crisis, startups are racing to develop software and tools that can help us mitigate climate change as well.
In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the 5 best climate software applications in 2023.
- Xpansiv
- Arcadia
- GridPoint
- Persefoni
- Sweep
Even though combating climate change primarily requires us to innovate in the field of hardware and government policies, good software that can help us better streamline and manage the processes. If we want to achieve net zero, we must combine the best of both worlds (atoms and bits).
What does climate software do?
Climate change is a huge issue, and climate action should be multi-faceted. Examples of climate software include carbon accounting software, carbon management software, energy management software, etc. By harnessing the power of machine learning and big data, a lot of startups are developing software that can help us efficiently cut carbon dioxide emissions. For example, the carbon offset market is a fast-growing one, growing at a CAGR of nearly 31%, and good climate software can help us identify the supply and demand globally, so that we can efficiently match buyers with sellers.
What are the 5 Best Climate Software Applications in 2023?
My top picks are Xpansiv, Arcadia, GridPoint, Persefoni and Sweep.
1. Xpansiv
Xpansiv is formed in 2019 and has over 300 employees and offices in Sydney, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Vancouver, London, Milan, and Bendigo. The startup is backed by big names including Blackstone.
Xpansiv is a one-stop center to register, manage, trade, settle, retire, and analyze your environmental commodities. These commodities include carbon, Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), water and digital fuels. With the tools and information provided by Xpansiv, you can more accurately value agriculture, energy, and materials.
The tools offered by Xpansiv include CBL, H2OX, ACE and OTX.
CBL
CBL is a spot exchange that links buyers and sellers of environmental commodities. You can trade commodities related to energy and the environment on this international trading platform, including carbon, clean energy, water, and natural gas.
To do this, CBL collaborates with environmental registries to make the trading of REC contracts and compliance contracts easier, offering same-day clearance and settlement for:
- NEPOOL GIS
- PJM GATS
- ERCOT
- North American Renewable Registry
- MIRECs
- NYGATS
H2OX
With live bids and offers for water, total price transparency, full order management, and the same fixed-fee structure for all transactions, H2OX is an effective and transparent market designed specifically for trading water.
ACE
Airlines, airports, and other participants can obtain real-time data safely and transparently through the Aviation Carbon Exchange (ACE). It offers a comprehensive selection of offsets from international projects that can be searched by region, price, kind, standard, and vintage.
OTX
OTX offers voice and electronic access to the market for renewable fuels, renewable fuel certificates, and compulsory stockholding requirements (CSO tickets).
The platform streamlines management of the lifetime of the agreements done through OTX and enables a broad perspective of the market and a shared understanding of trading rules and constraints.
Visit their website for more information.
2. Arcadia
Arcadia provides software and APIs to help automate and optimize the decarbonization of the grid. Basically, Arcadia uses data to disrupt the energy industry that has been too slow to digitalize. For example, customers can use Arcadia to time their EV charging to when the grid is cleanest.
Arcadia offers 4 products, namely:
- Plug
- Spark
- Bundle
- Source
Plug
Plug allows your customers to securely connect their utility accounts to your ecosystem through its developer-friendly API and front-end component. Using Plug, you can get the access you need to unlock a host of engagement and optimization opportunities.
The data provided opens up opportunities to personalize product offerings, provide crucial energy insights, and engage in the automations and optimizations that can transform you into your customers’ most trusted energy advisor.
Spark
In order to uncover savings for your clients, optimise devices and rates, and develop new engagement opportunities that increase brand value, Spark enables you to simplify the immensely complex utilities landscape for them.
Genability, the top tariff engine and rate calculator in the market, is now the source of power for Spark’s rate optimization capabilities. To guarantee that every customer receives the best rate possible, you may easily assess tens of thousands of permutations of rates, tariffs, and incentives by automating sophisticated cost computations.
Bundle
You can combine your goods and services with monthly utility payments using Bundle to create a streamlined, branded statement that gives your company the spotlight in the energy discussion.
Source
You may offer your clients a method to assist in cleaning up the electrical grid using Source. With it, you may broaden your offering to incorporate immediate access to the financial advantages of clean energy, bill savings via community solar programmes, and renewable energy certificates (RECs).
By enabling your customers to add RECs or join a nearby solar farm as part of your service agreement, Source gives you the ability to empower your consumers to take action against climate change, improve the quality of their energy supply, and promote the growth of renewable energy sources.
Visit their website for more information.
3. GridPoint
GridPoint’s stated mission is “to accelerate the world’s transition to a sustainable energy future”, which is coincidentally, highly similar to ClimateTechReview’s mission “to accelerate the adoption of technologies that enhance the planet’s sustainability“. However, GridPoint does this by “creating a network of smart, efficient, grid-interactive buildings”.
It is a subscription-based software that helps its network of buildings respond to grid demands in real time, providing utilities with reliable, precise, and instantaneous capacity.
GridPoint offers five solutions, namely:
- Energy Efficiency
- Operational Efficiency
- Demand Management
- Sustainability
- Grid Services
Energy Efficiency
GridPoint automates decarbonization, monitors energy use, conducts energy audits, and provides actionable insights into equipment energy use.
Operational Efficiency
Without requiring a comprehensive overhaul of HVAC and other vital systems, GridPoint’s energy management system analyses overall energy usage and other crucial data using advanced AI and proprietary algorithms. It then makes recommendations or automatically implements beneficial modifications.
Demand Management
With dependability and assurance in mind, GridPoint’s grid-interactive platform offers automated technology that maximises load reduction for time-of-use pricing, real-time energy markets, and conventional demand response programmes.
Sustainability
You may monitor energy use and renewable energy on the GridPoint platform to cut carbon dioxide emissions and meet your sustainability objectives. A thorough analysis of the CO2 impact is provided by computing real-time grid emissions, which are then applied to electricity use. Additionally, you may comprehend the information on energy production and contrast how much energy is used by conventional, solar, and renewable sources.
Grid Services
GridPoint establishes a connection between structures and the grid to coordinate energy usage in real-time reaction to grid signals and business requirements. GridPoint gives utilities and grid operators the data insights and demand flexibility that are increasingly needed by partnering with commercial organizations to implement smart technologies, change the way energy is consumed, and take part in grid services.
Visit their website for more information.
4. Persefoni
Persefoni is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) that automates climate disclosure and carbon management. The software makes it easier for you to calculate carbon footprints and meeting climate disclosure requests required by regulators, institutional investors, customers and supply chain partners with transparent calculation methods, models, data set, and audit trails.
Persefoni’s carbon management and accounting platform is easy to learn, even for beginners.
First-Time Setup
You will be asked a number of opening questions during the onboarding process to cover the fundamentals of your organizational structure and the decarbonization objectives your firm has in mind. This is to lay the groundwork for your carbon footprint computation.
Calculate Footprint
You will be given advice on which emission sources are most pertinent to your organization and what information you need to gather based on the industry and demands of your organization as well as a set of guiding questions. To boost visibility throughout your business, you may then control the data gathering process by designating data owners and due dates.
Explore Footprint
Through a series of analyses that provide a detailed view of your carbon footprint, including emissions intensity, scope, assets, people activities, funded emissions, places, and supply chain, you will be able to acquire profound insights into your carbon footprint.
Reduce Footprint
You can adjust your decarbonization strategy and model footprint reduction by scope and facility to comply with the Paris Agreement using granular reduction insights.
Visit their website for more information.
5. Sweep
Sweep is a SaaS to help businesses measure carbon emissions. By distributing the workload and automating the data gathering, and adding a fintech approach to carbon finance, it becomes a power-tool to manage your company’s climate projects in one place. Staff can be empowered to measure their own carbon emissions and take positive actions.
Sweep is very user-friendly, and offers the following features:
- Understand your impact
- Build a credible plan
- Get regular feedback
- Add depth and precision
- Involve your employees
- Work with other businesses
- Be on target
- Make strategic contributions
- Report your progress
Understand your impact
Determine hotspots and reduction potential quickly.
Build a credible plan
Align your reduction goals and plans with the most recent scientific findings.
Get regular feedback
Maintain current with regular, automated measurements.
Add depth and precision
Ensure that your data is accurate, precise, and usable.
Involve your employees
Give your workers more freedom to provide better data and significant results.
Work with other businesses
Join forces with other businesses to share information and promote action.
Be on target
Hit your reduction goals on a regular basis, and change as you advance.
Make strategic contributions
Support initiatives that contribute to achieving global net zero.
Report your progress
Create sophisticated dashboards and publish auditable reports.
Visit their website for more information.
Summary
When we think of climate tech, what usually come to our minds are solar panels and EVs. However, software also has something to contribute when it comes to curbing climate change. With advancement in artificial intelligence, we can expect to see more climate software and APIs help climate tech innovators reduce our carbon footprints and eventually solve more problems.