Over the past year or so there are more IT companies addressing their client’s requests to become more sustainable. One of those offerings is Carbon Counting Software.

At a most basic level, IT services offered by IBM, SAS, Clear Standards and other are “housekeeping” devices. Companies seem to vary in their emphasis on operations, as some are used as a tool for executive level decision making, while others help cut the tedious work of carbon management. Essentially they all aim to create a product that is easy to use and available online. Heck let’s face it the basic principles of carbon emissions reductions is no secret and if a company creates a policy and invests in the most energy-efficient, low carbon products and trains its staff, it will reduce their carbon output.

However, the new breed of software can be helpful if emission standards are set in the future, and trade-off’s might need to be made. Another plus is that the software connects sustainability with profitability and that mindset will only help their industry across the board.

Like anything else in business these days, to be credible the systems need to be measured and auditable. Suppliers suggest that the way around this issue is to build evolving carbon accounting standards into their software and be clear about emissions factors they are using when extracting energy data. However, like basic accounting- garbage in is garbage out, so the company will ultimately be responsible for the data they put into the system, knowing what buildings to include etc.

What is most interesting is that these new offerings will generate a major tool that could play an increasingly important role in determining the numbers disclosed by companies in their annual report, where reporting may become mandatory. This their profile will rise if sales of their products take off.