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Wal-Mart, Wall Street and Main Street are all paying attention to carbon accounting. Nearly every business has jumped on the green bandwagon, often with an inflated claim about sustainable sourcing or vague promises of environmental stewardship. Green groups have long been crying foul while consumers blindly pick up unsustainable products in pretty green boxes. Investors and retailers also largely have looked the other way.

But now it’s past time for companies to seek out real sustainability. They need to track, reach and exceed meaningful and consistent guidelines. That’s where sustainability tracking software comes in.

The new tech boom is in Enterprise Carbon Accounting programs that help companies calculate their carbon footprint and find ways to lessen their eco-impact. How big is the new carbon-management software movement, and why do companies need to hop aboard this high-speed green bandwagon?

• Last July, Wal-Mart essentially told its suppliers—all 100,000 of them—that they must provide legitimate environmental-impact data. Most of the companies will have to use the software unless they hire a whole new green accounting staff, and even a Wal-Mart contract isn’t worth all that.
• The California Air Review Board and other government agencies are requiring more environmental accounting data.
• At the same time, government agencies must meet their own sustainability goals and greenhouse-gas emissions targets. Carbonetworks and Carahsoft are getting a piece of the action by launching a new Web-based application designed for the public sector to help government agencies shrink their eco-footprint.
• Also hot for carbon calculation and disclosure are investors—those of both software developers and their business clients. Groom Energy Solutions this week released a report about the carbon-consulting software industry, which tallied $46 million in investments in 2009 for just two vendors. SAP and other software giants are also gobbling up the carbon-software startups.

Meanwhile, the Carbon Disclosure Project, which works toward the disclosure of corporate greenhouse-gas emissions, has attracted $55 billion in assets from investors who are looking to put their money into projects and companies that are helping to stop and reverse climate change. Groom Energy estimates that 80% of large companies will be reporting to the Carbon Disclosure Project by 2012 (and most of the companies will be using the new carbon-consulting software).

Not only is Groom providing data about the carbon-consulting software, it will also help clients choose a specific program. Their report this week graded more than 60 software vendors according to a set of 20 criteria. 
The current leaders, according to Groom, are Enablon and Enviance.

It’s time for companies to look into one of these key software packages before they lose investors, retailers and clients—and face government fines.

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