Calif.-based supplier of cloud-based environmental management software solutions delivered remotely via the Internet. The firm counts a number of major industrial companies among its customers, including Chevron, Dupont and American Electric Power (see “Reducing Regulatory Risk”).

Lawrence Goldenhersh, Enviance president and chief executive officer, confirms that a large number of companies are ill-prepared to meet the compliance requirements imposed by the new EPA reporting rules. A recent Enviance survey conducted at a major conference of electric utility companies, for example, found that 61 percent lack systems in place to record carbon emissions, Goldenhersh says.

The Enviance response is its 60-day Greenhouse Gas FastTrack program, announced on March 9. The FastTrack solution relies on a library of more than 130 preconfigured data collection and calculation models for stationary sources such as boilers, heaters and “anything you can imagine that produces CO2 and sits inside a fence line,” says Goldenhersh. These, combined with more than 100 mobile source models and others can be put in place as part of a complete, cloud-based GHG management system that can be up and running in 60 days or less to enable EPA reporting compliance, he contends.

The FastTrack program is offered on a fixed-price basis at $1,995 per month per facility, with multiple-facility discounts, according to Goldenhersh. This includes full implementation, consulting and online training for data entry, dashboards and reporting, the company says.

SAP too

Another company in the hunt is SAP AG. While the Walldorf, Germany-based enterprise software giant is known for its extensive on-premise software solutions, SAP in May last year acquired Clear Standards, a Sterling, Va.-based provider of on-demand, or cloud-based, emissions management tools and services. The Clear Standards offering is now known as SAP Carbon Impact. SAP has expanded the scope of the product since the acquisition, including some data integration with SAP’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) line, says Marty Etzel, SAP vice president, sustainability solutions. But Carbon Impact is still delivered by SAP as an on-demand solution over the Web, he says.

Among other things, SAP Carbon Impact enables companies to collect and analyze their GHG emissions based on different intensity factors, Etzel notes. This allows users to make carbon footprint comparisons between different factories or offices, for example, and identify different opportunities to reduce their carbon emissions, along with the financial consequences of each.

Carbon Impact includes features for non-regulatory GHG reporting from a single data repository to voluntary programs such as the Carbon Disclosure Project and the EPA Climate Leaders Program. But the solution is also well suited for reporting under the new EPA reporting mandate, Etzel says. “And that’s what we’re seeing customers taking an interest in,” he adds. “We’re working with several customers on how Carbon Impact is configured for this.”

Good measure

Without good measurements, of course, the effectiveness of carbon management software is limited. And the suppliers of instrumentation products are also taking aim at the market. Sierra Instruments, Monterey, Calif., for example, recently introduced a line of mass flowmeters that the company says it has self-certified for GHG reporting.

Process automation suppliers such as Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS), Phoenix, are also ramping up their services on the GHG reporting front. For smaller to mid-size manufacturers, in particular, the EPA rules “can be a little bit daunting, just because companies don’t have a lot of spare manpower to go after this kind of thing,” says Brendan Sheehan, HPS senior marketing manager, industry verticals. HPS has taken the time to understand the details of the extensive EPA rules, says Sheehan, adding “we want to be one of the sources that people can come to for help in figuring out what it is they need to do.”

Related Sidebar - Galloping Growth for Carbon Management
To read the article accompanying this story, go to www.automationworld.com/feature-6824.

Related Sidebar - Reducing Regulatory Risk
To read the article accompanying this story, go to www.automationworld.com/feature-6825. 

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