The Interchange podcast: The big moment for carbon accounting

Carbon accounting and disclosure is getting attention at the highest levels.

Gary Gensler, the chairman of the SEC, said in July: "I think updates to public company disclosures and to fund disclosures [on climate] could bring needed transparency to our capital markets. When it comes to disclosure, investors have told us what they want. It’s now time for the Commission to take the baton."

Gensler directed SEC staff to pull together a rulemaking proposal on mandatory corporate climate risk disclosure by the end of this year. It could be a watershed action, so to speak.

The world of enterprise carbon accounting, management and disclosure has been garnering a lot of attention, particularly in Silicon Valley circles. It’s a sexy sector. But it's also an early one – carbon accounting has seen limited adoption to date, and in its current form is often led by consultants doing pretty high-level annual surveys.

Will this become the next big enterprise software vertical, and maybe the first truly at-scale software sector in climate tech?

Joining this episode is Taylor Francis, the co-founder of Watershed, one of the most well-regarded emergent players in this enterprise carbon management sector.

Taylor and his founding team spun out of Stripe, where they were building internal tools, to help other companies follow suit. They've since raised capital from Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, along with the co-founders of Stripe themselves.

Taylor has a really thoughtful approach to this market and what companies are going to need as they enter the quickly-evolving world of enterprise carbon management.

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