Carbon & waste — sector discovery, published at its actual stage
Carbon claims
that survive scrutiny.
Evidence at source, not in the report.
The hard part of a sustainability claim is not making it. It is being able to show, later and to someone sceptical, exactly what it rests on. We are early here, and we would rather say so.
Why this sector
Chosen by consequence: what compounds here is trust in every claim made.
Organisations that handle material — collecting it, sorting it, recovering it, moving it — are increasingly asked to prove what happened to it: by customers, by funders, by auditors, and eventually by regulators. Most can describe it; far fewer can evidence it in a form that holds up when someone has a reason to doubt them. We choose sectors by what breaks if it goes wrong and what compounds if it goes right — here, what compounds is a record that keeps proving itself after everyone involved has moved on.
We publish this at the stage it is actually at, because a page claiming a finished product would be the first thing a serious operator saw through.
What we built here
Carbon Ledger — started in the Lab, the reason this sector is on the list.
The working problem
Carbon Ledger is one of the Lab’s project dossiers: how a carbon or diversion claim can be recorded so that it survives challenge years later. It is the clearest example of how work moves from the Lab into a sector — a question first, an operating principle second. The rule we work to: no claim without evidence, and no evidence without a record made at the time it happened. Capture designed in from the first collection, not reconstructed when somebody asks.
Most organisations can describe what happened to the material. Far fewer can evidence it when someone has a reason to doubt them.
Where the same logic points next
Energy and land.
We are still learning this sector — working alongside operators who move real material, to understand where AI genuinely pays in an operation like theirs and where it is decoration. The logic does not stop at the gate: energy and land are the next places the same question applies — who can prove, years later, what actually happened. They are directions, not sectors we serve yet.
What we won’t claim
We certify nothing.
- We are not an awarding body and we do not issue environmental claims. We build the systems that make a claim checkable.
- We will not dress discovery up as delivery. This sector sits in the Lab at the stage it is actually at, and we say so.
- We are explicit about what has and has not been independently validated — before you have to ask.
- We do not sell a dashboard and call it evidence. A claim that cannot survive a sceptic is not done.
Bring us the question you can’t get answered.
Thirty minutes with a founder. Tell us what breaks in your sector if it goes wrong and we will tell you where the evidence has to come from — and whether we are the right people to gather it.
Price agreed before we start · Founder-led · NDA available