How Carbon Accounting Firms Reduce Document Onboarding Time from Months to Hours

About the client:

The client is a leading carbon accounting software provider in the US, catering to sustainability teams at numerous Fortune 500 enterprises. They specialize in quantifying businesses' carbon footprints by collecting utility data, including electricity, gas, and water usage. By accurately measuring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, they enable businesses to comply with regulatory requirements, reduce carbon emissions, and establish sustainability goals. Though headquartered in London, they have successfully expanded operations to the US market.

Challenge:

The process of calculating GHG emissions involves the complex task of manually analyzing data associated with Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. These scopes categorize emissions into direct and indirect types, which helps organizations understand their carbon impact better. A significant source of this data is utility bills, which detail electricity, gas, water, and waste usage. However, utility bills vary widely in format and content, presenting challenges in accurately extracting energy consumption data.

Key Challenges:

• Data variability: Utility bills often lack standardization due to differing formats and terminologies across businesses, leading to potential inaccuracies in GHG emission calculations.

• Scalability Issues: Processing thousands of documents manually is time-consuming and hampers the ability to scale services effectively.

• Timeliness of Insights: Delays in data analysis can prevent organizations from meeting regulatory compliance and hinder the development of effective carbon management strategies.

Solution:

Trellis’s advanced AI capabilities streamline the consolidation of unstructured energy usage data for carbon management. By converting utility bill information into SQL-compliant formats, Trellis allows the company to identify specific data schemas using natural language processing. This advanced data extraction can capture key elements such as account numbers, company names, utility types, meter point numbers, and usage amounts, regardless of format variations. Consequently, the client can efficiently retrieve essential utility data and generate comprehensive energy usage reports for strategic carbon management.

Integration:

Trellis is designed for seamless integration with the client's existing systems through API endpoints. This capability facilitates the automatic ingestion of energy usage data from various utility bills, enhancing the workflow and operational efficiency significantly.

Data Structuring:

Trellis transforms unstructured energy usage data from utility bills into structured SQL formats, which can be easily utilized for further analysis. Examples of data that can be extracted using large language models (LLMs) for carbon accounting include:

• Dates: “What is the start date of the energy usage period?”

• Utility type: “What type of utility is being used (e.g., electricity, natural gas, water)?”

• Meter point number: “Identify the meter point number for the account.”

• Usage amount: “How much of the utility was used at the facility?”

• Waste type: “What type of waste was produced?”

• Waste amount: “What is the volume or weight of the waste produced?”

Automation:

Trellis automates the carbon accounting process by extracting relevant data, performing internal validations, and reformatting it for easy integration into existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. This automation minimizes the need for manual intervention, thus reducing the risk of errors in data handling.

Results:

• Scalability: With Trellis, the client can process hundreds of utility bills per day, significantly increasing data processing capacity. This enhancement supports a growth in their client base, ultimately leading to substantial carbon reductions across various businesses.

• Accuracy: The automated extraction process minimizes human errors, improving energy usage accuracy by 90%. This increase results in more precise calculations of carbon footprints.

• Real-Time Insights: The efficient processing of utility data allows businesses to quickly develop effective carbon management strategies. This capability assists them in meeting both sustainability goals and regulatory compliance mandates.