CO2 AI

CO2 AI operates as an end-to-end sustainability management software solution, targeting large, complex organizations aiming to achieve net-zero emissions. The company was initially developed within Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 2020 before spinning off into a fully autonomous entity in September 2023, with its headquarters in Paris, France. This transition was supported by a $12 million fundraising round from venture capital firms Unusual Ventures and Partech, along with continued investment from BCG. BCG remains a strategic partner, and its global chair, Rich Lesser, serves on CO2 AI's board.

The company was co-founded by CEO Charlotte Degot and CTO Florian Jourda. Degot, a former Managing Director and Partner at BCG, was driven by a long-standing concern for the climate crisis. This passion led her to pivot from a traditional consulting career, return to school to study data science and AI, and subsequently develop the AI-powered solution that became CO2 AI. Jourda joined as co-founder and CTO in 2022 after a successful tenure in Silicon Valley, where he was the first engineer at Box and led its engineering team for eight years. His goal was to apply his expertise to have a significant impact on climate change by helping industries with complex supply chains reduce their emissions.

The business model is based on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) subscription platform that provides clients with tools to manage their decarbonization journey. CO2 AI's platform integrates directly with a client's existing IT systems to automate the collection and analysis of vast amounts of data. It leverages artificial intelligence and a database of over 110,000 emission factors to calculate corporate and product-level carbon footprints with high accuracy, a process that can be completed in minutes rather than months. The platform is designed for large enterprises across various sectors, including consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, retail, and automotive. By providing a single source of truth for sustainability data, the company helps clients measure their emissions impact, particularly complex Scope 3 emissions, identify reduction opportunities, and simulate the effects of abatement initiatives. This enables organizations not only to meet regulatory reporting requirements but also to embed sustainability into their operational decision-making and collaborate with suppliers on decarbonization strategies. A key partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) resulted in the "Product Ecosystem," a platform for sharing product-level emissions data across the value chain.

Keywords: sustainability management, carbon accounting, emissions reduction, Scope 3 emissions, decarbonization platform, AI-powered analytics, net-zero solutions, enterprise software, climate tech, supply chain sustainability