Piloting digital verification and reporting with Greenko

User-centric is the only approach to developing solutions that meet the needs of those who will use them. And while we have a strong understanding of the opportunities digital technologies can bring, we also strive to include users early in the development and design of our solutions.

Greenko was one of the first carbon project developers to embark on our digital mRV journey. We were curious to hear about their experience so we asked a few questions to Seshagiro Rao, who heads Greenko’s commercial functions. We figured you might be interested in hearing from him too, so here it is:

You embarked early on to Pilot our platform’s digital verification and reporting capabilities. Why did you choose to work with digital solutions in the first place?

We think digitalization is an essential next step to minimize verification timelines, not only for Greenko but across all stakeholders involved. Today the process remains highly manual and documents overflow or site visits are increasing lead times. Verifiers physically visit project sites and we think digitalization could help minimize the risk of data misstatements during that process.

You have already built an integrated model where you, as a project developer, do most of the work. How do you think Sustain CERT’s digital verification and reporting feature will impact your project? Where do you see the most benefits?

Yes, we built an integrated model for data capture & flow. Our Renewable Energy assets are spread across 15 states in India and building this model was a way to ensure seamless operations. Our idea was also to capture data on a real-time and error-free basis and when we heard of SustainCERT’s work on digital MRV we felt there was an interesting opportunity. The combination of credibility of impact claimed and the ability to claim those impacts in real-time is where we see the most benefits.

How do you see the future of carbon credit issuances now that you had a sneak peek into digital verification and reporting capabilities? What is it that you are looking forward to the most?

Digital and integrated quantification and verification approaches approach can help project developers access carbon markets faster, minimizing the risk of errors – that’s a win for the planet – and converting credits into additional revenue with minimum time and resources – that’s a win for companies. We are looking forward to what the future verification industry will look like, and playing a part in rewriting it is quite exciting.

What potential risks do you think may arise from digital and integrated quantification and verification approaches?

A potential risk we are concerned with has to do with data security and issues with information security management system (ISMS) compliance. Making sure policies and procedures to manage data and to avoid security breaches is critical to maintain the integrity of digital verification.