The market for enterprise carbon and energy management (ECEM) systems continues its rapid evolution. Since publishing our Market Overview report last November, we have interviewed at least a half-dozen additional systems providers coming into this nascent market.

Last week we talked with Dan DeKemper, a director at Pricewaterhouse Coopers who works with the firm's 800-person-strong sustainability practice on large-scale ECEM implementation projects. Dan told us that PwC sees three industry sectors driving ECEM adoption:

  • Utilities and Energy, the traditional "heavy emitter" industries that are focused on monitoring and reducing carbon emissions for regulatory compliance and public perception reasons.
  • Retail and CPG, two verticals where adoption is now growing faster than Energy. These companies are implementing ECEM on a voluntary basis, looking to improve brand equity and align with sustainability initiatives of some of their customers like Walmart.
  • Public sector organizations, looking to be role models for the private sector and also under executive or legislative mandate to improve energy efficiency.

Like us, Dan thinks that the enterprise software companies like SAP are well-positioned in the ECEM market. He sees many customers that simply will not use a hosted (or SaaS) product due to security and data-ownership concerns. And for many of his clients, integration of an ECEM system with other software backbones — ERP, financials, BI — that are already in place is a paramount concern.

He did not completely buy into the other prediction in our report, namely that enterprise IT organizations will become the central buyer and operator of ECEM systems. He sees system acquisition being driven by the CFO, COO, or EH&S officer at his clients, with IT in the background. We did agree that as system integration and data assurance become more important, IT would play a larger role in the buying process.

Let us know what your firm is seeing and hearing as ECEM development and adoption gathers steam.