Introduction
Since the start of this year, I have been talking to more than 300 sustainability managers, consultants and software providers on the state of the carbon accounting market. Our discussions addressed various topics related to carbon accounting, from the regulatory landscape to the prospects of AI. Those conversations form the basis for this report.
The goal of this report is to provide an overview of the European carbon accounting market in 2024. The report is aimed at sustainability managers, sustainability consultants and regulators.
The report focuses on corporate carbon accounting, i.e., quantifying the full carbon footprint of an organization for a given time period. Although some insights are applicable to sustainability reporting in general, no statements are made beyond carbon accounting. Carbon offsets and/or carbon mitigation measures are not addressed in this report. The geographical focus is the European Union. However, the majority of the insights are also applicable to the United Kingdom.
The report
The report is structured along 7 insights. Each insight is backed up by data and visuals.
The EU carbon accounting market is growing, but the hockey stick growth still to come over the next 2 to 4 years.
- The EU carbon accounting market is growing from €1,4B in 2024 to €4,9B in 2028.
- Regulation (i.e., CSRD) is the main driver for (very) large enterprises, trickle-down-effect for SMEs.
- The carbon accounting sector needs to double capacity and double efficiency to follow market demand.
Companies, consultancies, software providers and auditors are preparing for the hockey stick growth in carbon accounting
- We distinguish 3 type of companies based on their carbon accounting needs: large caps, mid caps and small caps
- The number of carbon consultancies is growing with 17% per year and still relying on a classical consultancy business model
- Boom in carbon software providers in 2019-2022, today we see the first signs of consolidation but no clear winners yet
- We see a shift from green claims labels to third party assurance
Click this link to find the full report: Carbon+Alt+Delete – Status of the carbon accounting market 2024
I hope you can learn something from this report. All feedback and reflections are welcome.
Enjoy the read,
Kenneth
About Carbon+Alt+Delete
Carbon+Alt+Delete is a climate tech company founded in 2020 and with offices in Belgium (Brussels) and the UK (London). We develop carbon accounting software for sustainability consultants. Our cloud-based software supports the full carbon accounting process, from data collection and reporting to scenario simulation and auditing. The software is verified on an annual basis by a third party to be compliant with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (Corporate Standard) and the ISO 14064-1 standard.
Carbon+Alt+Delete works exclusively with sustainability consultants. At the time of writing more than 100 sustainability consultants across Europe use the carbon accounting software to track and reduce the carbon footprint of more than 1000 companies.
Carbon+Alt+Delete is also a Certified B Corporation since 2023.
