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July 21, 2008 12:01 AM PDT

CarbonFlow nets funding for carbon software

by Martin LaMonica

Will money start to flow to carbon software?

CarbonFlow has raised $2.9 million in its first round of venture funding from Clean Pacific Ventures, OVP Venture Partners, and Meridian Energy Limited, a New Zealand renewable energy supplier, which is a strategic partner.

The San Francisco-based company's founders are carbon emissions trading expert Karla Bell and Neal Dikeman, founder of merchant bank Jane Capital Partner and a contributor to CNET's Green Tech blog.

CarbonFlow's software, which is still under development, is being designed for managers of carbon emissions-reduction projects that want to monetize their carbon credits.

For example, a developer could install a solar energy project that replaces the use of kerosene lamps. The reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from that solar array can be sold on carbon trading exchanges.

The credits are bought and sold by heavy polluters in Europe that are mandated to reduce emissions as well as organizations that make voluntary reductions.

CarbonFlow's hosted software service will give project managers a way to manage projects and provide the audit documentation required to comply with the Kyoto Protocol and other state or regional climate change regimes, said Dikeman.

A schematic diagram of what CarbonFlow's carbon emission project management software does.

(Credit: CarbonFlow)

"Think Web 2.0 multi-tenant (software as a service) version of a 'classic' supply chain portal, with document management capabilities underneath, laid on top of UN environmental guidelines in order to hammer the transaction costs and lost productivity caused by the global nature of carbon projects," he said via e-mail.

Dikeman said that he's leaving Jane Capital to focus on the venture. Meridian Energy will use CarbonFlow's software to manage its carbon business, he said.

Also on Monday, another carbon-tracking software vendor, Carbonetworks, is expected to announce its series A round of $5 million.

Carbonetworks' hosted application is aimed at corporations that are doing their own carbon emissions programs, rather than renewable energy project developers. It's designed to give companies a way to create an inventory of their carbon footprint and manage different options for reducing it, which could be energy efficiency programs, purchasing offsets, or carbon trading.

Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin.
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Add a Comment (Log in or register) (5 Comments)
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by pmhut July 21, 2008 4:29 AM PDT
This seems to be an interesting product. What's amazing is that they managed to create a market (very similar to a stock market) for reducing CO2 emissions.

http://www.pmhut.com
Reply to this comment
by pmhut July 21, 2008 4:29 AM PDT
This seems to be an interesting product. What's amazing is that they managed to create a market (very similar to a stock market) for reducing CO2 emissions.

http://www.pmhut.com
Reply to this comment
by pmhut July 21, 2008 4:29 AM PDT
This seems to be an interesting product. What's amazing is that they managed to create a market (very similar to a stock market) for reducing CO2 emissions.
Reply to this comment
by jmartinbsu July 21, 2008 4:45 AM PDT
Carbon Credits, what a joke. Thanks California for jumping on the band wagon and helping to push Socialism for all. Welcome to the U.S.S.A.

You want to put carbon credits into perspective and see a government go bankrupt pushing a stupid idea? Make California pay in carbon credits for the carbon produced by the wild fires in their state every year. . . They'll have to sell their state off to Mexico to pay for them.

I'm going to go burn trash in my back yard now, carbon credit free.
Reply to this comment
by directorblue July 21, 2008 5:34 AM PDT
Put simply, carbon credits are a scam. Environmentalists (World Rainforest Movement, Corner House) and scientists have pilloried them as "fraudulent", "bogus", "fictitious", and worse, though to read an article like this one, you'd never know it.

Did you know that the original UN panel on climate change (IPCC) had a series of vested interests in promoting carbon trading? Several have become multi-millionaires as a result of these trading operations.

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2007/04/uns-ipcc-global-warming-bunko-scam-uns.html
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