January 2021
Company Spotlight
ClearTrace
For this Company Spotlight, we interviewed ClearTrace’s CEO, Lincoln Payton, about how the company is enabling companies to accurately and transparently measure and track their claims of carbon reductions, sustainability, and renewable energy. ClearTrace is an energy, data and technology company that streams secure energy data to the world of energy management, ESG reporting, and corporate sustainability. For more information on ClearTrace, please visit www.cleartrace.io.
Background / Value Proposition: ClearTrace leverages technology to quantify and manage data on renewable energy purchases and carbon avoidance, mitigating environmental risk for its clients. Numerous types of customers (i.e. corporations, energy producers, commercial real estate, financial investors, etc.) are utilizing ClearTrace due to its fit-for-purpose solution for the power industry with the following unique features:
Fully Automated: By securely connecting with smart electricity metering devices, ClearTrace can record when and where each electron of power is generated/consumed along with enriching that record with environmental metadata, such as emissions and carbon footprint metrics. Rather than the time-consuming, costly, and error-prone method of manually tracking this information in spreadsheets, ClearTrace’s patented data collection method provides an immediate, cost-effective, and accurate alternative.
Immutable: Utilizing blockchain technology, a decentralized ledger is used to create an unalterable database of digital “birth certificates” for electricity. Unlike renewable energy credits offered in the market currently, which are nearly impossible to ensure if you are the only one purchasing that specific offset, ClearTrace’s platform provides an end-to-end audit trail.
Verifiable: Today, there is no reliable method to prove that the carbon offsets being purchased will actually remove that amount of carbon from society. ClearTrace’s carbon accounting system creates a standardized and trustworthy record that is transparent and accessible to all parties interested in utilizing, purchasing, or selling carbon offsets or credits.
Insights: With more data on when, where, and how electricity is being generated and consumed, forecasting power supply and demand becomes a much easier task. This enables energy producers to better plan, streamline operations, and achieve better profitability while also enabling consumers to optimize their electricity costs.
Closing Thoughts: With so many organizations stating goals of reaching carbon-net-zero in the future, there is a major need for a standardized methodology for accountability to protect investors and other stakeholders from being misled by inaccurate sustainability claims. Companies like ClearTrace are making major strides towards that objective, and we look forward to following them in their goal of becoming part of the standard for the power market.