Watershed, a climate solutions provider, has announced the launch of “Cornerstone,” a new initiative in collaboration with Stanford University’s Stanford Sustainable Solutions Lab. This initiative aims to maintain and expand access to crucial datasets employed by companies for measuring Scope 3 value chain emissions.
Cornerstone will serve as a hub for open access to the US Environmentally-Extended Input-Output model (USEEIO), the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) carbon accounting model, and Watershed’s global carbon accounting model, the Comprehensive Environmental Data Archive (CEDA).
According to Watershed, USEEIO and CEDA are the most extensively utilised models for value chain or Scope 3 carbon accounting and policy research. Data from CDP indicates that these models are used to calculate approximately 65% of Scope 3 corporate carbon measurements globally.
The initiative will include Dr. Wesley Ingwersen, former EPA lead and architect of the USEEIO model, as Technical Director. Ingwersen left the EPA in July after signing a letter urging Administrator Lee Zeldin to reconsider the agency’s new direction. The agency subsequently announced it would cease updating the database.
Other leaders involved in the initiative are Dr. Sangwon Suh, Head of Science at Watershed and developer of CEDA, and Dr. Steve Davis, a Professor at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, both serving as Technical Advisors.
CEDA was developed by environmental database provider VitalMetrics, which Watershed acquired in 2023. Earlier this year, Watershed launched a free version of CEDA to enable organisations and companies to make more accurate decarbonisation decisions.
Under the new initiative, USEEIO and CEDA will merge into a single global open multi-regional input-output model managed by Cornerstone in the coming months. This new model aims to drive significant improvements in Scope 3 measurement and extend beyond greenhouse gas emissions to assess regional air and water quality, water use, and waste generation. The Stanford Sustainability Lab will lead research applying the model to identify and prioritise solutions to pressing sustainability challenges in energy and food systems while supporting ongoing model development. Watershed also noted that Cornerstone will incorporate additional open-source contributors over time.
Christian Anderson, co-founder of Watershed, commented, “By combining the most trusted environmental data models and keeping them open to the world, we hope to help companies and organisations build and maintain momentum on sustainability.”
