With the startup Sweep, companies calculate in real time how much CO2 they produce

Born in 2020, in just twelve months it had already raised 100 million euros in loans. These are the numbers of the French Sweep and they are not insignificant considering the speed of growth. It is a software platform that allows companies, of any type and sector, to reduce both their carbon emissions and those of the supply chain. Collects data in real time, quantifies CO₂ produced, establishes the best steps and strategies to bring them down.

“It is difficult to obtain and analyze emissions data,” says the co-founder Rachel Delacour. “Indirect emissions in particular. Yet having an accurate picture of the situation is a fundamental step if we want to do something for the planet. Sweep is for this. To find out first and then find the right solutions”.

Norman from Deauville, the seaside town on the “flowery coast”, 43 years old and two children, one six and the other thirteen, Delacour is an entrepreneur who had already achieved some important goals at the beginning of the pandemic. Her previous company, Bime Analytics, had been bought by the American company Zendesk. “A kind and respectful acquisition”, as she defines it. “During the lockdown we all stopped reconsidering our existence. It was a moment of uncertainty, but as far as I’m concerned, also of creativity. I had more time to think and to read. I come from a normal family and the money obtained from the sale of Bime have allowed me to secure the future of my family. The point though, scrolling through the IPCC reports that I had only glanced at earlier, is that no one is in fact safe until we cut emissions“.

Delacour began reaching out to all the CEOs of the companies Bime had worked with to figure out how to build a science-based system to help the private and public sectors reduce emissions, not simply offset them by buying carbon credits. It quickly became clear that the first step would be a data analysis platform to understand exactly, company by company, the state of things. How much CO₂ in practice it is generated by every single process and then find a way to reduce it.

It is not the first nor the only company that uses artificial intelligence to analyze in detail every movement within a company. However, Sweep does it automatically on the one hand, without the need to intervene in the collection of information which it instantly quantifies in terms of environmental impact, on the other by offering a platform where the data are presented in a clear way to make it easy to intervene in every single aspect.

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Knowing what you are doing is in itself a value, beyond the use that is made of it later to try to have a lower environmental impact. But it is clear that on the environmental front we still have a problem both in terms of measurement standards for company emissions and in tools, as the president of Microsoft has also pointed out several times Brad Smithwhich on this issue for at least two years has underlined the need to move in a different way than in the past.

“When you have all the information you need in one place it becomes much clearer where your properties are and where it is best to focus your efforts“, continues Delacour. “Being able to continue to monitor the improvements, we are able to calculate every single aspect, it doesn’t matter the field. It can be a factory, a school, a bank. All the information is often already present between supplies, expenses, logistics. It’s about organizing and translating them.”

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There are public databases of emissions, especially in France, which give all matches for every aspect. For example how to quantify the production of a certain amount of glass produced, or how much it entails in CO₂ its movement from the factory to the dealer. Sweep is based on these archives which, in addition to being public, are governmental, created on assessments made by research institutes, and updated. To these it adds the software part and a greater degree of accuracy according to the cases, also providing predictive tools.

“I felt I didn’t deserve the money I received from the acquisition if I didn’t reinvest it in a new company capable of making a difference in the fight against climate change“, concludes Delacour, convinced that this is one of the essential sectors of the future, when everyone will have to demonstrate that they are doing their part to combat climate change.