Energy Insights Releases Industry Short List For Carbon Management Applications

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Energy Insights announced today that it has published an Industry Short List to help utility and oil and gas executives evaluate IT suppliers providing carbon management software applications. In its new report, Industry Short List for Carbon Management—Compliance and Sustainability (Doc #EI214350), Energy Insights compared and contrasted five relevant IT suppliers.

Carbon management has become an extremely high-visibility initiative in the energy industry. Worldwide attention has been riveted on the prospect of global climate change and the pressure to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide (N2O). This concern is manifest in climate-focused energy policies and regulations, consumer and business awareness, attention by shareholders and credit rating agencies, and increased venture capital investment in clean technologies.

Energy companies are rising to the challenge, seeking to reduce their carbon impact. They are concerned with compliance with environmental regulations, as well as the market perception of their commitment to sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Proactive energy companies are implementing packaged applications to measure, monitor, model, and manage their carbon. The applications are tools used to assemble emissions data, calculate estimates, manage compliance tasks, manage progress against goals, and produce internal and external reports.

According to Jill Feblowitz, program director, Energy Wholesales Strategies, "Momentum for carbon management – a relatively new area – is growing with the prospect of a cap and trade market in the U.S. and the desire for energy companies to support sustainability. Beyond complying with new regulations, the company that proactively adopts carbon management will be able to comply efficiently with changing regulations, reduce emissions, and take advantage of opportunities in carbon trading, and thus will be able to re-invest in more carbon management initiatives."

Energy Insights believes that for companies to be able to adequately support corporate sustainability reporting and management, a comprehensive enterprise application with drill down capabilities is required. The Industry Short List report looks at five application vendors: SAP, ESS, Enviance, IHS, and Logica. Among the key recommendations presented in the study are the following:

• Each energy company will have specific needs, so it is important to go the next step in evaluating the offerings in relation to these needs.
• If all the functionality desired is not currently available, do not attempt to build an in-house workaround.
• The business and regulatory environments are changing rapidly, and vendors' offerings should be flexible enough to accommodate changes.
• Consider a corporate-wide carbon management approach. This will allow the company to manage corporate progress against goals and also provide the necessary information to support trading and hedging in the carbon market.

In this study, Energy Insights used its Industry Short List methodology, which centers around three principles the company believes are critical in today's selection of an IT supplier: fact-based research, industry focus, and evaluation transparency. The study includes essential guidance and specific recommendations for utilities using the Short List when evaluating suppliers.

About Energy Insights, an IDC Company
Energy Insights, an IDC company, provides research-based advisory and consulting services focused on market and technology developments in the electricity, natural gas, and oil industries. Staffed by senior analysts with decades of direct industry experience, Energy Insights' research spans the energy value chain—upstream, wholesale, delivery, and customer service—providing independent, timely, and relevant analysis focused on key business issues. Energy Insights serves a diverse and growing global client base, including electric and gas utilities, IT vendors, independent power producers, retail energy providers, oil and gas companies, equipment manufacturers, government agencies, financial institutions, and professional services firms. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. To learn more, please visit www.energy-insights.com.

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