Carbon ERP shifts consultants to strategy
Ryan Miller, VP & GM of Private Markets at Persefoni, on building an ERP for carbon
The key shift is that carbon software turns consultants from spreadsheet labor into decision support. Once the system handles emissions factors, audit trails, and recurring data collection, firms like Bain and CGI can spend less time converting fuel, electricity, freight, and supplier data into CO2 numbers, and more time telling clients which plants, suppliers, shipping lanes, or portfolio companies to change first to cut emissions and cost.
-
Persefoni positions carbon accounting like financial close. Companies still gather raw activity data from finance, facilities, procurement, HR, and supply chain teams, but the software automates the conversion into carbon totals. That removes a large block of manual consultant work without removing the need for strategy work.
-
The partnership model makes the split explicit. Bain pairs Persefoni’s audit ready carbon data with decarbonization planning, and CGI markets Persefoni as the calculation layer that helps clients collect, manage, disclose, and then execute on emissions reduction. The software becomes infrastructure, while consultants sell the roadmap.
-
This also explains why Persefoni partners with Patch and Novata instead of trying to own every adjacent workflow. Patch handles offset procurement after emissions are measured, and Novata sits in broader private markets ESG reporting. Persefoni’s role is to be the carbon system of record that other tools plug into.
If this plays out, carbon accounting becomes common back office infrastructure and the scarce premium service shifts to operational decarbonization. The winning platforms will sit inside monthly business processes, feed executives and boards with current emissions data, and become the base layer that consultants, investors, and offset marketplaces build on top of.