US Students Tackle Corporate America’s Greenhouse Gas Challenge

Montreal, Edinburgh  – A new generation of US graduate students will tackle global corporate greenhouse gas emissions using state of the art greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting and reporting software from Ecometrica – in a first for the US education system.

The downstream space and sustainability company has made its Platform available to students at George Washington University (GWU) in the US capital. The agreement will see budding environmental leaders on the Greenhouse Gas Management Assurance and Information Systems Design course become the first US graduate students to gain free access to Ecometrica’s award-winning Platform.

The course is part of GWU’s Greenhouse Gas Management Certificate program, which was created in collaboration with the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, a non-profit dedicated to building and supporting a global community of greenhouse gas professionals. The program brings together practitioners and higher education to build a community of experts with the highest standards of professional practice in measuring, accounting for, auditing and managing GHG emissions.

Ecometrica contributes critical technology to the program. The Ecometrica Platform’s audit-ready GHG modules were built from the ground up by subject matter experts and allow user to input their activity data, easily calculate GHG emissions, produce GHG emissions reports, and analyse their climate change impacts in order to better manage them.

Professor Jonathan Deason, co-Director, Environmental & Energy Management Institute at George Washington University said: “Thanks to the collaboration with Ecometrica we are giving our students access to a state of the art GHG accounting and reporting tool. We combine the use of the tool with lectures and expert interviews to provide students with hands-on experience and insight on how companies use systems to manage their GHG emission. The course, supported by Ecometrica’s software, prepares students to make the maximum possible impact once they enter the workforce.”

George Washington University D.C. is the first American university to gain access to Ecometrica’s software for the purposes of training students. It follows the memorandum of understanding signed between Ecometrica and The University of Edinburgh’s School of Geosciences in 2016, which paved the way for undertaking larger collaborative work with universities.

Vanessa Boudreau-Sannier, Ecometrica’s chief operations officer in North America, who spearheaded the educational community initiative, said: “We are committed to supporting future practitioners and working with leading universities to enhance their knowledge and capabilities using satellite data mapping applications to measure greenhouse gas emissions and wider environmental and climate impacts.

“US businesses have really stepped up their efforts to become environmentally responsible in the last years, and greenhouse gas management-focused courses are emerging in North America partly as a response to that. As carbon reporting continues to get more important for businesses in response to the external and internal pressures dictated by a changing climate, carbon management skills are increasingly in demand.

“We are committed to helping organizations of all sectors manage their environmental impact as effectively, transparently and efficiently as possible, and we hope this community initiative will pave the way to support other US universities, which are training tomorrow’s environmentally responsible business leaders.”

About Ecometrica

Ecometrica, the downstream space and sustainability company, turns the vast and growing streams of observation data from space, air and land into actionable insights for business, government and society.

A leading provider of sustainability and earth observation services, its satellite mapping technology is being used to protect 300 million hectares of tropical forests as part of the Forests 2020 project, which Ecometrica is spearheading on behalf of  the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme (IPP).

Ecometrica is one of the world’s top sustainability brands, as named by industry analyst Verdantix. It is the only CDP Gold Software Partner for its climate change, forests and water programmes. Ecometrica’s geospatial data mapping services, which support all aspects of sustainability planning, operations and reporting by businesses and public organisations, are available worldwide, through offices in the UK, USA, Canada and Mexico.

The firm is a winner of the prestigious Environmental Leader Product of the Year Award two years in a row, for its Ecometrica Platform. It is also ranked on the FT1000 list of Europe’s fastest growing companies and Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500.

Founded in 2008, Ecometrica’s formidable story derives directly from the vision of its founding members and leadership – executive chairman Dr Richard Tipper, chief executive Gary Davis and chief product officer Bertrand Revenaz. Backed by a team of recognised experts, Ecometrica has unrivalled experience in environmental sustainability accounting and reporting.

The Ecometrica Platform, a web-based accounting and sustainability management solution, combines earth observation data from satellites with local information and business intelligence, to bring clarity to environmental and natural resource challenges facing corporates and governments alike. It helps businesses to easily track and map their impact on natural capital assets, like forests and water, tracking supply chain activity, verifying sustainable product sourcing, and environmental reporting to established sustainability frameworks. It makes the terabytes of raw data being sent to Earth by satellites easily accessible, bringing limitless possibilities for its application. It is the only sustainability software solution with audit-ready assurance from a Big Four auditor (PwC). For the largest customers who get their accounts externally audited, this means avoiding costly pre-audit fees that often run into hundreds of thousands of pounds per year.