December 20, 2023
Discover how Sustainability Roundtable, Inc (SR Inc), a leader in outsourced sustainability program management and aggregated virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs), drew on its deep well of experience in helping companies procure impactful Purchaser Caused EACs to validate the effectiveness of EACs, submitting a response to the Call for Evidence in collaboration with Member-Client Akamai Technologies’ Director of Corporate Sustainability and ESG Officer Mike Mattera. SR Inc and Akamai’s response is strengthened by evidence from Akamai’s third-party data partners: Quantum Energy and REsurety. The evidence presented focuses on the effectiveness of the impact-driving instrument SR Inc has labeled Purchaser Caused EACs.
The full SBTi submission is available for download here.
In September 2023, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) opened a Call for Evidence on the effectiveness of Environmental Attribute Certificates (EACs) in Corporate Climate Targets. The Call for Evidence is part of broader research by the SBTi into how companies achieve their targets and the parameters for robust reporting on target progress, delivery, and achievement. The instruments included in this research are emission reduction credits and energy attribute certificates; the research does not include removal credits. Sustainability Roundtable, Inc (SR Inc) drew on its deep well of experience in helping companies procure impactful Purchaser Caused EACs to validate the effectiveness of EACs, submitting a response to the Call for Evidence in collaboration with Member-Client Akamai Technologies’ Director of Corporate Sustainability and ESG Officer Mike Mattera.
SR Inc and Akamai’s response is strengthened by evidence from Akamai’s third-party data partners: Quantum Energy, which uses AI-driven energy modeling algorithms, integrated life cycle data analytics, and innovative software solutions to develop a picture of avoided emissions and public health/ecosystem impacts; and REsurety, which offers software and services to drive data-driven insights into the project lifecycle, including a Locational Marginal Emissions (LMEs) tool to quantify hourly avoided carbon emissions. The evidence presented in SR Inc and Akamai’s joint submission, bolstered by Quantum Energy and REsurety’s data, focuses on the impact-driving instrument SR Inc has labeled Purchaser Caused EACs.
In the current voluntary market, how does a company ensure that the EACs they are procuring are a result of the company’s efforts to cause new renewables and grid decarbonization? Akamai and SR Inc stand behind the notion that, while all properly qualified and certified EACs are fairly said to represent renewable energy, achieving incremental climate impact hinges on a mechanism to ensure that the EACs corporate buyers procure over years will be generated from newly caused renewable energy capacity. The mechanism of choice to ensure that the market value of an EAC is commensurate with the abatement costs is the Purchaser Caused tag for EACs, which would certify that a company has entered into a long-term monetary agreement to directly contribute to (and denote) the creation of new renewable energy capacity through a VPPA or other mechanism.
SR Inc is working with key relevant industry players, including leaders at CEBA, CEBI, and EPA’s Green Power Partnership, as well as top leaders from the growing climate technology sector, to explore how to officially establish a Purchaser Caused tag in the EAC market, which will certify RECs as having enabled new grid capacity.
The Purchaser Caused EAC tag would certify the public health and ecosystem benefits of the avoided emissions caused by EACs. In their collaborative submission to the SBTi’s Call for Evidence, SR Inc and Akamai draw on data from Quantum Energy and REsurety to highlight the economic, public health, and ecosystem benefits of Akamai’s 18MW offtake of the Azure Sky Wind project in the ERCOT grid in Texas, which delivered EACs attributed to purchaser-caused renewable energy.
This buyer-aggregated transaction, in which Akamai was responsible for 18 MW, helped finance new wind energy capacity. Akamai obtained Purchaser Caused RECs from this project, and the market-based method under the GHG Protocol’s Scope 2 Guidance allows Akamai to apply these EACs to its electric load anywhere within the U.S. and Canada.
REsurety is a software and services partner dedicated to accelerating the world’s transition to a zero-carbon future. Its software offers data-driven insights at various stages of the clean energy project lifecycle, including Locational Marginal Emissions (LMEs), which provide a high-resolution measurement of the marginal emissions rate at each project on the grid in each hour. REsurety analyzed the emissions impacts of Akamai’s 18MW VPPA using its nodal, hourly LME data and hourly generation data that capture actual grid conditions at each specific project location. REsurety’s analysis demonstrates:
Quantum Energy, Inc. utilizes AI-driven energy modeling algorithms, integrated life cycle data analytics, and innovative software solutions to build the business case for the clean energy economy. To support the joint response to SBTi’s Call for Evidence, Quantum used their TotalView Energy Platform, which provides stakeholders with a full picture of avoided emissions, to demonstrate the benefits to public health, ecosystems, and the economy caused by Akamai’s Azure Sky clean energy procurement. Quantum’s analysis utilized REsurety’s data on the emissions impact of Akamai’s offtake, based on real grid conditions over the first 16 months of the project’s operation. Quantum’s estimated lifetime projections are based on the carbon mix identified by REsurety over this 16-month period.
Quantum’s results show that, without Akamai’s 12-year financial commitment to Azure, the Texas grid in 2022 would have produced 18 additional metric tons (MT) of particulate matter (PM10-eq), 4,400 MT of emissions leading to human toxicity (1,4 DCB-eq), 72 MT of emissions leading to terrestrial acidification (SO2-eq), and 10 MT of emissions leading to freshwater eutrophication (P-eq), while consuming an additional 12 million gallons of water. The reductions in air pollutant and carbon emissions could lead to 58 human life years and 0.13 local species saved annually, while producing $10.3 million in economic benefits annually. Over the lifetime of the project, Quantum estimates that there could be 691 life years saved, $101 million in public health benefits, and $23 million in ecosystem benefits.
SR Inc and Akamai’s collaboration with Quantum Energy and REsurety demonstrates sustainability leadership by sharing key information on the effectiveness of EACs in driving quantifiable public health, ecosystem, and economic benefits. As identified by SR Inc, a future area for research is the further integration of increasing renewable energy penetration with projection methodologies to provide a full picture of VPPA impacts on ecosystems and public health.
SR Inc and Akamai’s collaborative response to the SBTi Call for Evidence, drawing on data provided by Quantum and REsurety, demonstrates how the Purchaser Caused EACs associated with Akamai’s 18MW commitment in their Azure Sky Wind VPPA can deliver measurable emission reductions, along with quantifiable public health, ecosystem, and economic benefits. While this case study centers on Quantum and REsurety’s evidence on Akamai’s 18MW, these results can be extrapolated to the Purchaser Caused EACs generated from all 111MW of new incremental wind energy enabled by Akamai, MilliporeSigma, Synopsys, and Uber’s commitments.
The availability of Purchaser Caused EACs in climate markets, like those procured by Akamai, MilliporeSigma, Synopsys, and Uber in their Azure Sky Wind procurements, can promote the accelerated utility-scale renewables development desperately needed to address human-caused climate breakdown. The VPPAs facilitated by SR Inc’s NZCB enable the expansion of climate finance while allowing sustainability-minded businesses to signal their demand for new renewable energy and impactful climate solutions. Innovative collaborations that bolster the case for strong climate action, like SR Inc and Akamai’s work on this SBTi Call for Evidence, are instrumental in accelerating the energy transition.
Anna Whitney is a Senior Program Associate at SR Inc with a focus on sustainability benchmarking and program management for Member-Clients. Anna develops and implements SR Inc’s communications and marketing strategy relating to renewable energy. Prior to joining SR Inc, Anna was an educator, teaching about environmental and climate science at Horace Mann School and Brunswick School, as well as a guest lecture at Columbia Climate School. Anna completed a Master’s degree focused on sustainability education at Teachers College, Columbia University and graduated with a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College.
