Today, we’re announcing the Watershed Ecosystem: a new and expanded network of partners and advisors to drive exponential climate action at the world’s leading companies.
As Watershed has grown to power sustainability programs at every type of company, in every industry and region, we’ve seen how interconnected climate action really is. The actions one company takes have a ripple effect on its partners, customers, and suppliers. And with more companies participating in the climate economy every day, connecting those actions has become more important—and more impactful—than ever before. We have the opportunity to drive exponential climate action.
The new Watershed Ecosystem gives companies the tools they need to connect, scale, and up-level their climate programs—so that the actions they take aren’t incremental, but exponential. It includes:
- The Watershed Marketplace, with more than 45 partners offering high-integrity carbon removal, virtual power purchase agreements—and, for the first time, sustainable aviation fuel certificates through Watershed’s first-of-its-kind partnership with the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA).
- A new Science Advisory Board of accomplished climate scientists, whose expertise informs our industry-leading methodologies for measuring greenhouse gas emissions and vetting carbon removal projects.
- An expanding group of technology, data, and consulting partners that augment and complement Watershed’s platform capabilities, including new partnerships with Arcadia, ecoinvent, ERM, Accenture, and others.
Patrick Flynn has also joined Watershed as Advisor and Chair of Watershed’s CSO Council, which will convene sustainability executives from the world’s leading companies. Patrick has worked in climate for more than a decade and most recently spent more than seven years building Salesforce's industry-leading sustainability program.
Getting to net zero, faster: The Watershed Marketplace
The Watershed Marketplace helps companies accelerate decarbonization with a comprehensive selection of high-quality climate projects from around the world. The Watershed Marketplace is part of our platform, so you can manage purchases in one place, and match credits with your carbon footprint.
Projects on the Watershed Marketplace must meet an extraordinarily high bar for quality and demonstrate real results. We also bring together the collective buying power of companies to invest in major projects that would otherwise be inaccessible to most companies.
In addition to offering engineered carbon removal, nature-based carbon removal, high-quality carbon avoidance, and clean power projects from more than 45 different partners, we’ve added sustainable aviation fuel certificates (SAFc) to our expanded Marketplace offerings.
SAF is the best opportunity we have to reduce aviation emissions: it has the potential to cut the carbon intensity of flights by around 84%, but remains prohibitively expensive for most would-be buyers and constitutes less than 0.1% of total jet fuel supply today. Purchasing sustainable aviation fuel certificates will get more SAF into jets, and help companies compensate for their existing air travel that they cannot yet reduce. Customers can fund the replacement of fossil-based jet fuel with sustainable aviation fuel through a first-of-its-kind partnership with the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA). Watershed will be a member of SABA and its first ever aggregator partner.
Expanding our partner ecosystem
The Watershed Ecosystem also includes an expanded set of consulting, technology and data partners, with deep platform integrations that extend capabilities for customers. Watershed’s newly announced partners are:
- Arcadia, which makes energy data accessible, comprehensive, and actionable for businesses and developers (and, in 2022, acquired Urjanet, the world’s largest utility data provider);
- ecoinvent, the international mission-driven organization devoted to supporting high-quality, science-based environmental assessments;
- PCAF, the partnership for carbon accounting financials, which enables financial institutions to assess and disclose greenhouse gas emissions associated with financial activities.
Watershed has previously announced partnerships with Workiva, CDP, Novata, and Google Cloud.
Watershed’s consulting partners help deliver all components of a world-class sustainability program. These partners help with measurement program management, decarbonization and target-setting strategy, stakeholder management, and reduction plan implementation. Watershed is now partnering with:
- ERM, the global pure-play sustainability consultancy that partners with the world’s leading organizations to create innovative solutions to sustainability challenges and unlock commercial opportunities.
- Accenture, the global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments, and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth, and enhance citizen services;
- BSR, the sustainable business network and consultancy focused on creating a world in which all people can thrive on a healthy planet.
Watershed has previously announced partnerships with KPMG and Applied Value Consulting.
Science advisory board
Today, Watershed is also introducing a new Science Advisory Board, which brings decades of climate expertise to vetting decarbonization projects for the Watershed Marketplace, advising on Watershed’s industry-leading measurement methodologies, and consulting on the highest-impact reduction pathways.
These new board members join our existing team of climate and policy experts, scientists, investors, and advisors, including Dr. Sangwon Suh, Mark Carney, Christiana Figueres, and Al Gore.
Our Science Advisory Board will be chaired by Dr. Steve Davis, Professor of Earth System Science at UC Irvine. Board members include:
- William Anderegg, an Associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Utah, and Inaugural Director of that university’s Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy.
- Inês Azevedo, an Associate Professor of Energy and Resources Engineering in the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University.
- Joseph Fargione, a science director at a major environmental NGO.
- Emily Grubert, an Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Policy at the University of Notre Dame.
- Matthew Long, a co-founder and Executive Director at [C]Worthy, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and an Adjunct Scientist/Oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
- Destenie Nock, an Assistant Professor of Engineering and Public Policy as well as an expert in energy justice.
- Adam Pellegrini, a group leader for the Ecosystem and Carbon Science group at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge.
- Anna Trugman, an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
- Dominic Woolf, a Senior Research Associate in the Soil and Crop Sciences Section of the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University.
