Cornerstone Sustainability Data Initiative
Our goal
Our goal is to provide high-quality, open-access sustainability data for organizations everywhere. As a first step, we're bringing the two most widely used scope 3 emissions models under one roof: USEEIO and Open CEDA, ensuring continuity and reliability for institutional sustainability measurement. In the coming months, we'll bring these together as a single global open MRIO (Multi-Regional Input Output) model that can offer a durable common standard for companies, governments, and researchers. Quality data is the foundation of great sustainability work, and our goal is to provide the essential models that form the cornerstone of that foundation.
CEDACEDA is Watershed’s Multi-Region Input Output Model, first developed in 2001 and built primarily for the professional use case over the last two decades. CEDA covers 400 sectors and is globally representative, capturing true emissions variation across 148 countries and regions Open CEDA was released in May 2025 and is available for download and enquiries at openceda.org. | USEEIOUSEEIO is the US Environmentally Extended Input Output model, originally developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This model provides emission factors across >400 sectors for the US economy and is widely used for corporate measurements, policy and academic research. Cornerstone will provide support and updates for USEEIO going forward. Read more about USEEIO at useeio.org. |
Cornerstone Leadership
Cornerstone is a collaboration across organizations each of which is contributing leaders to help inform and steer the initiative, including the following experts in sustainability and climate data:
Dr. Wesley Ingwersen
Research engineer, Stanford Sustainable Solutions Lab
Dr. Steve Davis
Professor, Stanford Sustainable Solutions Lab
Dr. Sangwon Suh
Head of Science, Watershed
Dr. Mo Li
Environmental Scientist, Watershed
Questions and support
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