With more businesses committing to sustainability initiatives in the face of climate change and increasing environmental, social and governance (ESG) regulations, there is greater urgency in finding solutions that optimize the time and data-intensive portions of creating corporate sustainability reports. With that in mind, Atrius, part of Acuity Brands, Inc., recently announced the availability of Atrius Sustainability Starter, a free, entry-level carbon accounting solution that enables companies to track their carbon emissions (Scopes 1 and 2). The new tool simplifies the emissions calculation process by reducing time spent on carbon accounting in spreadsheets, an effort that 21% of industry professionals are currently struggling with.

“Atrius Sustainability Starter is an introduction to emissions tracking that removes the two biggest hurdles small and mid-sized businesses have when they start their sustainability journey: time and money,” said Sandeep Modhvadia, vice president of Product for Atrius/Acuity Brands in a press release. “Fifty-five percent of surveyed U.S.-based public companies are using spreadsheets to gather and calculate emissions according to Ernst & Young, and the number is likely significantly higher for smaller companies. Manual reporting methods waste valuable employee time and are prone to human error, which can impact businesses that share their data with customers or other stakeholders.”

Users input their data into Atrius Sustainability Starter with help from guided product tours, enabling self-service emissions calculations. Simplifying how organizations track, measure, and optimize their emissions outputs frees up valuable time and resources that might otherwise be spent on manual calculations and verifications. With additional capacity and more resources invested in automating manual processes, sustainability professionals have the potential to accelerate their progress on other operational goals.

For businesses looking to automate their carbon accounting with turnkey features for reporting, alerting and data quality control, Atrius Sustainability Starter can be upgraded to the full version of Atrius Sustainability. Atrius Sustainability Starter provides a direct upgrade path to the Enterprise tier that offers customers greater data automation and integration abilities. With Enterprise tier, customers can expand their use of the platform as they continue reaching their sustainability goals.

Sign up for a free Atrius Sustainability Starter account and learn how your organization could be reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.