Backing CarbonBright, Powering Sustainable Supply Chain

Empowering the CPG Industry to Confront Climate Change Head-On

We're excited to support CarbonBright, an innovative startup tackling the pressing climate challenge by helping businesses understand and reduce their environmental footprint at a product level.

Carbon Bright Team (David, Francesca, Thejas)

Based out of London and San Francisco, CarbonBright was established in late 2022. It boasts a dynamic founder trio: David Rodrigues, Francesca Kennedy Wallbank and Thejas Nair, who bring rich experiences from their tenure at Yahoo, Cloudera, and Unilever.

The Imperative Challenge

It's no news that Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are wreaking catastrophic effects on our planet and intensifying global climate change concerns. While entities like the UN are at the forefront, championing 'Net Zero' targets, many corporations are also stepping up to shoulder the responsibility.

Significantly, a vast majority of GHG emissions are traced back to the supply chains of these industries. Thus, there's a growing demand amongst organizations for tools that amplify visibility and empower them to diminish their supply chain footprints. Concurrently, the Lifecycle Assessments (LCA) facilitates a detailed assessment of the individual impacts of products, spanning aspects like water consumption, air pollution, and, of course, emission profiles.

A Wind of Change

There are two primary drivers of change pushing for more carbon-neutral initiatives within industries: consumer demand and climate regulations.

Increasingly, consumers have become eco-conscious, using their purchasing power to favour sustainable products and services. This heightened awareness of environmental issues means brands are now under pressure to adapt. This consumer drive is pushing industries towards greener practices and heralding a wave of green consumerism.

And when we examine climate regulations globally, the importance of GHG reporting has never been higher than it is now. Regulations requiring companies to report their overall carbon posture have been implemented in recent years in the USA, EU, and more recently, in India.

Furthermore, we are also observing countries mandate reporting at the product level, as demonstrated by the UK's Green Claims Code and the European Commission’s Product Environmental Footprint Directive. These regulations ensure that companies aren't just talking the talk but are also walking the walk. They aim to confirm that a company's claims about its product are based on accurate assessments and not just marketing gimmicks.

However, for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies, determining the carbon footprint of their product portfolio represents a monumental task. Relying on LCA  analysts is both time-consuming and expensive, with each product’s LCA taking weeks to complete and costing thousands of dollars for analysis.

This is where CarbonBright's capabilities truly shine.

CarbonBright's Innovative Solution

CarbonBright is at the forefront of transforming sustainability assessments. Their platform automates in-depth, product-level carbon impact evaluations, simplifying the intricate LCA process. 

With a foundation built on over 100,000 data points, CarbonBright efficiently gathers data and employs predictive modelling to deliver comprehensive analyses. This is especially valuable when data is scarce and LCA analysts would otherwise spend significant time attempting to source these data points, sometimes unsuccessfully.

More than just analytics, the platform identifies emission hotspots and provides actionable insights to help businesses reduce emissions and bridge the gap between companies and their sustainable goals.

Ultimately, businesses benefit in three key areas: 

• The platform excels in delivering rapid results by automating the complex process of supply chain data collection and analysis. This emphasis on speed enables businesses to quickly identify and integrate sustainable innovations across their entire product portfolio. 

• Furthermore, supported by an expansive data network and advanced modeling, it provides accurate LCA evaluations. 

• Lastly, such automation notably reduces the time and effort required for LCA assessments, leading to considerable cost savings.

Blending speed, precision, and cost-efficiency, CarbonBright's platform paves the way for more businesses to seamlessly achieve LCA reporting readiness.

TAM: Unveiling a Massive Market Opportunity

The CPG  sector offers a vast landscape for businesses to operate within. Take a moment to ponder the extensive reach of giants like Walmart, which commands a supply chain boasting over 100,000 suppliers globally. Now, if you consider the ripple effect — where many of these suppliers have their own cascading chains of suppliers — the scale of this ecosystem becomes truly awe-inspiring.

Our exploration into the TAM reveals a market brimming with potential. With suppliers stretched across the globe and nested within intricate supply chain structures. When we broaden our horizons further. Beyond the primary focus of the CPG sector, they present their own vast canvases of opportunity. 

In essence, when we synthesize this data, it becomes evident that CarbonBright is poised at the cusp of a colossal market opportunity. The potential is vast and undeniably impressive.

The Stellar Team:

CarbonBright's team is its linchpin.
Francesca, a beacon of environmental passion, has consistently demonstrated her commitment to sustainability. From launching green entrepreneurial ventures and assisting global brands at Unilever in digitally communicating their sustainable initiatives, to her notable appearance on The Apprentice UK, she embodies the ethos that CarbonBright champions. 

David, with his impressive product-centric background and history of driving companies to significant exits, brings unparalleled product expertise.

And Thejas, with his robust engineering acumen, steers the engineering endeavours leveraging his experience in building large-scale data-driven applications. 

FortyTwo’s investment Focus

FortyTwo's focus remains on world-changing entrepreneurs in B2B SaaS, with CarbonBright exemplifying that vision. As CarbonBright advances in its mission to create a lasting impact on the climate race, it is fortified by the power of software. Through its pioneering solutions that enable enterprises to adopt greener practices, it is poised to revolutionize both the climate and software sectors.

Reach out to us

If you are building within the Green SaaS domain or in Enterprise Tech, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. You can contact us at deepthought@fortytwo.vc.