ClimateCamp: decarbonizing supply chains to create a more sustainable future

Meet ClimateCamp: The Belgian start-up helping businesses decarbonize their supply chains to create a better, more sustainable future.

Supply chains account for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Businesses will play a major role in reducing these emissions in order to meet global climate goals and will need to set precise goals to make their targets achievable. But without a clear understanding of the emissions in the supply chain, it’s almost impossible to know where to start.

Scope 3 emissions are the indirect emissions which occur in a company’s value chain. Yet, 70% of European procurement directors have no information about these emissions within their own companies, and nor do they have easy access to the right data that can inform a carbon reduction strategy.

It was this challenge that sparked the creation of ClimateCamp, a startup which is changing the way businesses report and share their carbon data.

The four co-founders were working for a global insurance company with affiliates all over the world when they came up with the idea. Attempting to understand the carbon footprint of the company required huge amounts of country-specific data, from suppliers to affiliates across the value chain.

“Exchanging this key information became a long process, with constant back and forth calls and a huge number of complex spreadsheets”. says Stijn Gysemans, co-founder and CEO.

“We immediately saw an opportunity to reduce the number of discussions needed to share this information and connect all the dots in a much simpler and more sustainable way”.

With backgrounds in data infrastructure and integration, and with the support of Microsoft for Startups, the founders created a solution. ClimateCamp allows organizations to easily engage with hundreds of suppliers to get a clear view of the carbon emissions across their supply chain. The platform has been built using Microsoft technology and is already helping businesses exchange and communicate these vital metrics, which in turn helps them create a more sustainable supply chain.

ClimateCamp consolidates carbon accounting data in one place for businesses and suppliers, allowing each individual business to have a complete understanding of the carbon output in the context of their broader supply chain. They can easily see the environmental impact of their vendors and suppliers through the digital dashboard, drastically reducing time spent on the reporting process.

This frees up time for businesses to instead focus on making the operational changes which will decarbonize their supply chains, rather than constantly chasing data. They can have a clearer understanding of their carbon footprint, enabling them to accurately set emissions goals for the future.

Since their incorporation in September 2021, ClimateCamp has been part of the Microsoft for Startups program, which has been providing them with the technology, guidance, and support to accelerate their growth.

“ClimateCamp have worked extensively with the Microsoft Belgium team as well as our trusted partners to accelerate their go to market plan during their first year” says Myriam Broeders, Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Belgium-Luxembourg.

“As a company, they have shown impressive growth and commitment, creating a brilliant stakeholder network around them to ensure quick wins and a long-term strategy, and even going on ‘work-ations’ abroad in order to focus and speed up solution development”.

The ClimateCamp team began their back-end development using .NET framework and are now using DevOps services for managing pipelines and planning projects. Built on the idea of being able to smoothly exchange and communicate vital metrics like carbon information and progress for customers and suppliers, an open platform was needed.

A serverless approach was also an important choice for ClimateCamp, so they opted to use Azure cloud extensively to reduce resource consumption and ensure zero downtime deployments. These benefits are also ensuring ClimateCamp has scalability, something which has been top of mind for the founders from day one.

“A really important benefit of choosing Microsoft solutions was how it can help us scale. Using a serverless approach and Microsoft apps help us easily build out our service to more customers.” says Saddam Muhammed, technical lead.

“As we expand geographically, we also need to think about sourcing from the global talent pool. From a recruitment perspective, using Microsoft services gives us the best choice.”

So far, with the help of the Microsoft Belgium team, ClimateCamp has focused their attentions to the food and beverage sector, beginning with four breweries in Belgium. As they begin to onboard more suppliers, they are hoping to accelerate their projects across other European countries and industries, as well as work with Microsoft to build an integration with the platform.

And with Microsoft technology, they are primed to expand quickly and effectively. With ambitious targets for growth over the coming months to onboard dozens of customers and suppliers on to the platform, ClimateCamp hope to begin setting industry standards and contribute to a standardized data model for Europe.

Making Europe climate-neutral by 2050 is a top priority for the European Union, and businesses in the region will play a major role in helping make this a reality. Thanks to their partnership with Microsoft, ClimateCamp is helping businesses more accurately and easily view their carbon emissions, set Scope 3 emissions goals, and understand their carbon footprint, helping them contribute to a more sustainable future.

ClimateCamp offers an easy-to-use connected platform that allows users to collaborate with their suppliers and provides accurate insights into the carbon emissions across the supply chain.

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