2025 will challenge corporate sustainability as political leadership shifts globally and companies face new, rigorous sustainability disclosure mandates like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
Before we dive into the coming year, we’re looking back at 2024’s highlights—from groundbreaking clean power and sustainable aviation fuel projects funded by Watershed customers, to policy insights shared by key experts following November’s election, to numerous product innovations advancing emissions measurement and management.
January
We launched new custom emissions factors capabilities and scope 3.15—or financed emissions—measurement. Both features deepen the granularity of emissions footprints. Read about it in the first edition of Watershed’s monthly product newsletter.
February
We announced $100M in new Series C funding, valuing Watershed at $1.8B. The round was led by Greenoaks, and included Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, and other existing investors.
March
Sylvie Goulard, a former member of the European Parliament (MEP) and Deputy Governor of the Banque de France, joined Watershed’s Policy Advisory Board, a group of climate policy leaders that advises Watershed and our customers through a fast-changing climate policy landscape.
Watershed was named one of America’s Best Startup Employers by Forbes.
April
We introduced Watershed for CSRD, a solution to help companies comply with ESG reporting requirements under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. The CSRD is the broadest sustainability disclosure requirement in history—consisting of more than 1,000 data points—and will impact more than 50,000 companies around the world.
We formed CSRD Connect—a community for finance and sustainability professionals overseeing CSRD compliance to knowledge-share and access expert resources.
We launched the Watershed API—allowing customers to establish a single external connection for all business data to flow into (and out of) Watershed.
Watershed was named a leader in sustainability management software by analyst firm Forrester, receiving the highest possible scores in sustainability intelligence, ESG strategy, ROI calculation, reporting, and more.
May
We announced a first-of-its-kind Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA), co-funded by Canva and their five largest print suppliers. The project will build a network of new community solar projects in Illinois while reducing the emissions of these suppliers and Canva’s own scope 3 footprint.
We added custom reporting functionality to Watershed so that companies can respond to any reporting request beyond the regulatory frameworks already supported by Watershed.
Watershed was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies, and appeared on the CNBC Disruptor 50 list.
June
We announced another groundbreaking VPPA project, funded by 8 Watershed customers including Block, Braze, DoorDash, Match Group, and Unity and building 5 new solar plants that will serve 16,000 households in Michigan. Michigan Public Radio featured the project as “a new way to get more companies involved in the transition to clean energy.”
Gayle Miller, former Chief Deputy of Policy to the California Department of Finance, joined the Watershed Policy Advisory Board as companies prepare for new sustainability disclosure mandates in California.
July
Block published an interview with Watershed Climate Advisor Eric Nevalsky, focused on economic empowerment through the lens of sustainability. In the words of Eric:
“The climate transition is going to impact every part of our economy. To achieve a goal like net-zero emissions, we’re going to have to rethink how everything operates. And that comes with a lot of risk and a lot of opportunity.”
August
Watershed surpassed 1 gigaton of CO2e under management, a key metric that denotes our impact potential. What is measured can be managed, and what is managed can be reduced.
A new Watershed Supply Chain feature launched to let companies track and score their suppliers’ sustainability progress, helping them make informed decisions about procurement and more.
September
We hosted our annual Climate Week Summit, bringing together Watershed customers, advisors, and partners for an afternoon all about momentum in corporate sustainability. The summit included conversations with Christiana Figueres, architect of the Paris Agreement; Watershed customers from Coty and Klarna; and more. Apple’s Lisa Jackson talked about how Apple successfully decoupled emissions from growth.
We also launched the newest version of CEDA, the world’s most up-to-date and comprehensive spend-based emissions database: 60,000 emissions factors from 400 industries across 148 countries and regions, covering 95% of the world’s GDP and reflecting the latest economic, environmental, and technological change. CEDA’s latest update reflects global decarbonization progress: a median 15% decrease in customer footprints.
And, we rolled out a new campaign focused on the people changing climate change: Cameron Adams at Canva, Mia Ketterling at Pinterest, Sophia Gluck at Okta, Rob Whittier at Visa, Louis Mark at Autodesk, Rob Roy and Marisa Farabaugh at AdventHealth, and Aaron Chethalan at BlackRock.
October
As companies prepare for the first wave of CSRD reporting, we released a how-to guide for all things CSRD, including dos and don'ts for the first report, how to build a CSRD team and collaborate across an organization, and how to prepare for CSRD audit and assurance.
November
Ahead of November’s US presidential election, Watershed’s Head Scientist Dr. Sangwon Suh authored a piece arguing climate progress will continue regardless of who sits in the White House:
“The wheels of progress are turning, and climate solutions have moved into the hands of industry and innovation. Incentives are increasingly aligned to compel private sector action—an important lever in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. I believe that the march to reverse climate change is past the point of no return.”
We broke down the likely implications of the election results for climate policy and corporate sustainability into three key themes: 1) Corporate climate disclosure is mandated for large global companies, regardless of who is in the White House; 2) All eyes are on the IRA, where the outlook is unclear; 3) The underlying economics of the transition to net zero will continue to drive corporate action on sustainability.
We hosted a webinar with climate policy experts Rich Powell, CEO of the Clean Energy Buyers Association and the Clean Energy Buyers Institute; and Rob Jackson, former Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Watershed’s Head of Clean Power Matt Konieczny published a forecast for clean power in 2025, advising sustainability leads on how to evolve their renewable energy buying strategy in light of changing political dynamics, competitive pricing, and increasing demand.
Watershed customers participated in a $200M collection of deals by the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance that will add sustainable aviation fuel directly to Alaska Airlines passenger flights, leading to an estimated 75% reduction in carbon intensity relative to conventional jet fuel.
And, we announced that CDP—the world’s only independent environmental disclosure platform—worked with Watershed to collect and analyze data for its own emissions reporting, including its annual CDP report. Nearly 25,000 companies worldwide disclosed environmental data via CDP in 2024. We also launched a new Watershed feature enabling companies to transfer their data directly to the CDP portal, streamlining the process of submitting to CDP.
December
We hosted a CSRD Summit, featuring conversations with Mark Carney; Sylvie Goulard; Amy Lyn, CFO of Operational Sustainability at JPMorganChase; and Graeme Pitkethly, former CFO of Unilever and vice chair of TCFD. Watch the full recording here.
We added automatic supplier mapping to Watershed, which gives customers access to their suppliers’ sustainability data and supplier-specific emissions factors with the click of a button—helping build a more granular measurement over time.
Finally, to help companies navigate the new sustainability disclosure landscape in 2025 and beyond, Watershed formed a CFO Advisory Board: Raja Akram, the Deputy Chief Financial Officer for Morgan Stanley; Michelle Collins, former Deloitte Partner; Luisa Gómez Bravo, Chief Financial Officer at BBVA; Panos Kakoullis, former Chief Financial Officer at Rolls-Royce Holdings; and Graeme Pitkethly.
