Businesses routinely make choices about the energy they use, the suppliers they rely on, and how products are shipped. These decisions have a huge impact on how much carbon pollution goes into the atmosphere.
“And it’s our job to do the math so that those decisionmakers at businesses on the front lines know the difference between option A and option B,” says Taylor Francis, co-founder of Watershed.
The group developed software that companies can use to measure their emissions, make a plan to reduce them, and report on their progress.
Francis says it helps companies examine purchasing decisions, which are often their largest source of carbon pollution.
For example, he says the sweetgreen restaurant chain has been using the software to analyze its menu.
“They know the carbon that comes from goat cheese and avocados and kale,” Francis says. “And they’ve done that all the way down to the farm level, looking at the specific carbon impact of specific agricultural practices of their suppliers.”
sweetgreen is using the information to redesign its menu and improve purchasing decisions.
Francis says that as more companies cut carbon from their supply chains, the data gets better and costs come down, so it gets easier for others to do the same.
Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media