 Good morning afternoon evening to everyone wherever you may be depending upon where you are geographically and Welcome to the latest webinar from the open group This one is on emissions data management and the open footprint forum Just before we get started today. My name is John Mayer and the open groups Events director and I'd like to take you through a couple of aspects of WebEx in case you haven't used the WebEx platform in the past The way we're going to communicate today. You have a couple of means of communication if you wish to talk to us in terms of Send us messages or send messages to other people who are on this webinar Please use the chat channel if you look at the lower right hand corner of your screen You'll see a little speech bubble if you click on that that opens up the chat channel And you can tell us where you've come from what the weather's like whether you know You're having a good day. You can discuss anything in that chat channel. You can talk to other attendees on that chat channel, okay? However, if you wish to send in questions to the panelists today I would ask you please not to do that in the chat channel but to use the Q&A channel Now the Q&A channel is accessed Again to the bottom right hand corner of the screen to the right of the speech bubble You'll see three dots in a horizontal row if you click on that that opens up some more options One of those options is the Q&A channel, okay? And if you have any questions for the presenters, please put those in the Q&A channel That's where we will look for the questions It's difficult for us to scroll through all the information on the chat channel to find questions So please keep the questions to the presenters in the Q&A channel. I Should also let you know this session is being recorded So both the recording and the slide deck will be made available After the event probably either sometime tomorrow or on Monday of next week So if you're not I'm going to be here for the whole of the session. You'll be able to see it on demand after the events finished So all that leaves me to do is to hand over to Jim Hightala who's going to run this session today Jim is the open groups VP of sustainability and market development. So over to you, please Jim Thanks, John and welcome everybody Today, we'll be talking just generally about the topic of emissions data management and then more specifically About the work in the open footprint forum are doing in that area so With me today. I have AJ Vandemort AJ is from InterTech. He is the co-chair of the open footprint forum and Dr. Nainesh Kutta also from the open footprint forum AJ and Nainesh will be giving a presentation That talks to some of the issues in emissions data management and work in the open footprint forum And then as John mentioned, we will have a Q&A at the end I'll be doing those questions and directing them to either AJ or Nainesh So please as questions come up during the presentation Put them in the Q&A tab and we'll get to those at the end of the webinar. So Without further ado, AJ, I'll hand it over to you And that will be a presentation. Thank you very much Thank you very much, Jim. I hope you can see me. I appreciate it. I will as well share a PowerPoint presentation With all the attendees Which will come up now Right, as Jim said, I'm the co-chair of the open group I've been involved probably for about three years now on behalf of InterTech. InterTech is a Large one of the oldest companies in the assurance testing, inspection and certification industry. We date them back to 1896, when Thomas and Edison started ETL But what is the open group's open footprint forum? As it states here, the open group open footprint forum provides universal data standards across all industries We're trying to do that by Providing data standard that has been jointly developed and agreed by leading organizations Representing the industry professional services and technology And if you as an organization or as a software developer have implemented the OFP data standard Then each company will then use the same definitions Which means that the carbon values that are being developed Which means that the carbon values that are being shared by organizations Are then better analyzed and more efficiently analyzed This allows companies to then focus their time and efforts on using data On their initiatives, which are typically decarbonization or commercial application Now our strategy is based on the following that first of all we have a problem statement, right? The problem is there is a lack of trust in data, be it ESG, sustainability or carbon footprint And it needs to change as it impacts investors and the planet This statement from the Office of International Affairs of the US Security and Exchange Commission puts that problem statement right in front of us So the upcoming mandatory climate disclosure regulations, and I mentioned just a few here, the SEC one The CSRD one and the CSA for Canada should bring some urgency to the matter Let's dive into the details To be able to solve this problem, we need to agree on a comprehensive standardized data model For carbon emissions and to do so, we used the greenhouse gas protocol standard, which has been around since the mid 90s On the image on the right, you can see that it differentiates between direct and indirect emissions And then it breaks it down in scopes one, two and three With the aim to provide an clarity in order to avoid the so-called double counting, this in the carbon footprint is probably the most complex part that we're talking about, right? So OFP has taken this concept and developed the versatile data standards for carbon counting Similar what you do in financial counting, but now we're going to count carbons, including third-party verification by auditors And why is that required? As regulators are now mandating this, those of you that may have heard that as of two weeks ago, the European Union has now finalized their mandated regulatory requirements and we'll go more detail in a few slides That means companies need to have a level of trust in the data in order to influence and improve their sustainability impact And that trust is increased by having a well-aligned data model whose data can be verified, and that last thing is a very critical part More on that later First let's delve a bit deeper into the topic of standards, because that's what the OFP is all about, or the open group There are various reporting standards, frameworks, and alliances For anybody of you that's here on the call have been involved before, I've just mentioned here about three of them There is another 20, 30 of those standards, right? For example, the World's Business Council for Sustainable Development has got a very unique standard for Scope 3 And that's a very unique standard for Scope 2 For example, the World's Business Council for Sustainable Development has got a very unique standard for Scope 3 Then there is of course CDP, that's more a standard with regard to raw reporting, and then there is ISSB, which is the International Standard Sustainability Board Which is a sister company of IFRS, right? But all of them Have overlooked the technical details. So all these standards are It's a lot of documents and you can wade through it You can start to understand it But how are we going to now transform that in something that we can work with, for example in an IT system, right? Now OFP provides this, this enables companies and technology providers like Hyperscalers EAP software companies And other ESG tools to use the OFP standard And implement their own way for tracking, managing and exchanging the data Providing maximum flexibility and extensibility As you can understand, there are many players In this ecosystem of sustainability or ESG, whatever you call it, right? There are policy makers, there are standard centers, and I've got them at the top and then At the bottom I've got the auditors and technology companies And of course the corporations and you see many of them being depicted here Many of those have already adopted the OFP Standard and here is a list of them. These are committed organizations that have already committed to OFP In total we have about 288 members and Nainish will provide more details on how OFP is organized in a few slides, right? First of all, as I mentioned before, there is a reason why this is urgent As regulators, like the SEC, are mandating these climate related disclosures next to an organization's financials So now not only do you have to report every quarter your 10k according to the profit and loss Or an income statement, you now as well have to report similar But then related to non-financial carbon accounting, right? The timeline slide here shows when the proposed law is expected to be final The UK is already active and the SEC's final rule is expected this month Actually next month in October Followed by Canada and Europe And we've heard yesterday that Canada has been delayed probably by a couple of months We expected more to be either in December or early next year And as I mentioned before, the European ruling, which is called the European Standard Sustainability Reporting Standard has already been adopted As of a couple of weeks ago Now based on this ruling, the blue arrow shows when carbon data collection should start And as you can see here, for example in the UK, they require five years of historic data Once you file in, for example, Q3 2024 So that means you cannot wait, you need to collect that data now The SEC, however, requires only two years of data This means when the first filing is due in Q1 2025 You're required to report on data from Q1 2023 and that was A couple of quarters ago Notice well when limited and reasonable assurance is required This means data quality is not optional Today, most companies use thousands of spreadsheets as reporting so far has always been voluntary We have identified over 30 disclosure requirements that are consistent Amongst the global sustainability regs that impact the data model Here is a list of the first eight, for example, periods covered As I mentioned in the previous slide that the UK requires five years of data Including energy usage performance Other jurisdictions like China, India, Japan, Korea and Singapore Follow similar guidelines Now what does then the data model look like? And first I want to show you a slide It is how it fits in a typical enterprise architecture At the highest level, you've got organizations and regulations that drive the data model And not only regulations related to what actually is happening in your carbon footprint But as well, what are your plans? What are your scenarios? What are your targets up to 2050? When most organizations are trying to become net zero In the middle, you will find the supply chain partners As well as the facilities related to the carbon emissions And at the bottom, the consumption of resources and its emissions and waste Now on the right hand side, you can have, for example, climate data Or you can have the open source, the data universe for carbon storage It's called OSDU, which is a very important part these days As the world has realized that just stopping with carbon emissions isn't going to happen So we need to capture it and we need to store it Some, we call it in the data model, sinks More of what is on the left hand side And how we integrate with ERP systems or ESJ reporting systems a little bit later Here is a logical entity's overview I wanted to show this to you because it shows how comprehensive it is There's about five layers behind this The heart of the data model are the emission activities And you see that here on the right hand side It says GHG activity It is either a source or there is sink And then below that you see all its calculations Of course we can work with other calculators But what is critical for an auditor Is to understand how a particular number has been calculated And have the traceability and transparency of their calculations At the bottom you find the product carbon footprint Now this is something that is relatively new It was announced by the World Business Council For Sustainability Development Particularly around scope 3 requirements For product carbon data exchange That basically means that when you are in the Producing products or provide services Customers will start to ask So what is your product carbon footprint per For example batch or per kilogram Or per unit We even included product life cycle analysis Or LCA as it's called in the industry That means we are ready for the circular economy And a complete data model for all your sustainability needs That's what we're aiming for Now this slide shows the multitude of use cases And this is having been involved now for about 3 years Every time that we get into a discussion These days put up this slide to say Well what green box are we talking about here Is it between an asset and a corporate Or is it between the third party and a corporate Or is it between a corporate and a regulator Or some reporting framework or the EPA So it shows the multitude of use cases OFP is the green part for data exchanges within an organization And that's in the darker blue When we're talking about your supply chain or regulators That is in the lighter blue And this shows the depth and breadth of OFP So what else makes OFP unique? And that is its architecture The model is built that the model is built on It is a 21st century architecture with microservices And containerization for AI, IoT, big data or blockchain With an API-first approach Including the latest cybersecurity and DevOps environments From the world's largest hyperscalers With most microservices from Google Open Edition And you can run that on either an AWS, Azure or GCP Or on your own cloud environment We have maximum flexibility for independent software vendors Or companies to use it As a platform as a service Or as a software as a service Or business process as a service And build cool apps on top of an open source OFP So what about integration and interoperability? Well, there is something unique about common data Most data is already existing in some kind of ERP system And in some form or in thousands of spreadsheets All you need to do is ingest And rich with calculations, consume and deliver To support a full lifecycle of data That is sustainability built in OFP Be it for analytics, climate risk mitigation Life cycle analysis, carbon offsets Or simply regulatory reporting I'm saying simply, it's sometimes not as simple as it looks You don't need a monolith rigid ERP system With limited integration and interoperability Even better, the Open Group has delivered This successfully with the standardization of subsurface data In their so-called OSDU platform And OFP is using the same architecture With a different data model or above surface So what are our deliverables? First of all, it's clear documentation of the OFP data model Second, the data model with supporting APIs That can be embedded within companies and their products Thirdly, 100% open source and downloadable from GitLab Available on GCP, AWS and Azure And downloadable for anyone Our environment is not meant for production runs We are a reference model And the APIs, of course, will be backwards compatible As I mentioned before, our reference implementation Has the same underpinning as the Open Group's OSDU My last slide The underpinnings of our OFP strategy Are based on three fundamental aspects We want to stay aligned with key institutions To drive the evolution of the OFP data model This is a marathon This is not a sprint that is quite clear Although a lot of people are sprinting at the moment Because they didn't realize the mandatory aspects Or how complex it can get Second one is OFP to support the trusted sharing of emissions data Across the value chain By evergreen APIs And last but not least OFP is designed to support all industries As carbon is a global problem And I'll hand over to Nainish Thanks, Ajay I think you can imagine that this work Cannot be done by just anybody And it requires a team structure Next slide, please, Ajay We have six teams in the OFP working structure As you can see, they're outlined here Team one is the technical implementation and architecture team They, the purpose is to develop the APIs To support ingestion, extraction, and general sharing of data Based on what Ajay described earlier Team two is more about data modeling and data architecture And they define the data model Based on learnings and feedback that we have received Visit 13, reporting and assurance It defines current and future requirements To support regulatory reporting Be different entities from different areas SEC, CSRD, around GHG missions Team four, it defines current and future requirements Because all these are need to be fed back to team one and two Around the data foundation Team five, it is essentially creating awareness And aligning the model with the latest changes And updating everything Team six, regarding documentation and publication It creates the documentation to support the publication of the standard Next slide We are asking, we prefer participation in open forum Put in forum, why? By actually participating, your organization can influence the way These standards are developing That is very important for us Each insurance, each company has its needs And we would like for those to be represented We would reduce the cost burden of designing and validating Your own environmental print platform And products or solutions of your own And it also avoids being locked into proprietary solutions Getting maximum value Promoted to all areas of your company Who may benefit from this, such as stakeholders Which includes business units, technical industry relations Sustainability and others Align your products to our standards early And please join the open group, open footprint LinkedIn group What will you get? The benefits Standardizing the architecture and the APIs Will allow for easier data transfer between companies As AJ showed before There were a large multitude of companies, ecosystem that's involved The ecosystem will be increased Will be created for compatible application services And a large market for software developers target By providing an open source reference implementation It lowers the barrier and eases access for smaller companies As well as leverages the innovation of many of the software developers Finally, it reduces the work of each entity involved In collecting data in your supply chain and your value chain For particularly scope 3 Which is the most onerous collection of data for reporting and mixed purposes It consists of all the indirect emissions that occur in the value chain Including both upstream and downstream Which means it includes all your suppliers And their suppliers as needed Next slide We're asking call to action We have the data model being developed And it'll be extended to include the WBSD initiative Please help us with validing data model Through live examples and use cases We are currently working on a few use cases We could always use assistance in enhancing those as well as newer use cases Second, extending the data model to incorporate assurance data elements We want to make sure that this is available And this most importantly it meets all the assurance needs by all the providers Lastly, writing up and publishing the data standard And join us at the bottom, the link for the group is at the bottom Next slide Thank you and I will pass it back on to Ajay Or Jim Or Jim If I can be put as presenter I can put the last slide up And so now we'll go to a Q&A If you have questions and you can submit them on the Q&A panel that would be ideal First question I'll direct to either of you Ajay I know you look a lot at the various regulations The question is is the open footprint standard data model aligned to the CSRD Which is the European Sustainability Regulation Yes it is And I think on slide number eight or nine We have probably spent about a year and a half Taking the first drafts of the what the CSRD is called ESRS And we've worked on that We've identified because we want to be a global standard Because there is many global companies This is not only for the EU This is the companies that are dealing with the European Union Be them in Asia or be them in South America or North America So the data model is aligned with that Okay and the next question is also a regular question Does this align with TCFD Which I think is the task force for climate financial disclosure Yeah that's a good question You know many of the frameworks or regulators have based their regulations on the TCFD So being aligned with the various regulations means that we are as well aligned with the TCFD Okay and there's one other in that vein as well Does this align with the carbon call other open data standard initiatives? Well that's that is of course A very critical thing in where we are at the moment And since we are working Very intense with the largest energy providers be them Oil and gas companies or be them utilities And as well with the technology providers be it Google Be it AWS be it Microsoft and then the auditors I mentioned the big four We believe we are very well positioned to Incorporate a lot of the open data standards that are out there And of course there will be some overlap like always right What I've realized after working with this for almost about three years The critical part is the transparency at the same time When you provide transparency there are certain things that organizations would like to keep confidential So there is an enormous amount of effort being put in that the architecture Incorporates all that So we of course are happy to work with a lot of other data models And you know that is the 21st century architecture And if if that is a possibility to work with the car a certain Open standard we'd like to do so. Yeah Okay shifting gears a little bit Can you either you talk about When the various deliverables are expected to be You know released and they develop out into to the proper community Currently if you are a member you can already Work with the data model and build your applications. We already have some life implementations of members that have tested this environment It is our plan at the end of this year to Make it available in the In the open source environment And right now we've standardized on on GitLab for that matter So that is where it will be released and then there is a whole process and Jim maybe you can Explain the process of getting involved once it is open source from a certification perspective Yeah, so once the the model is put into Community GitLab and made made public, you know, it's available at that point to be used by anybody The data model snapshot the actual published documentation for the data model Goes through an open consensus process inside of the open group That takes uh, you know, it'll take eight to ten weeks to Go from, you know, the forum Signing off that the work is done through through to actually being published and voted on by members and so on and so forth. So So that's a kind of a parallel thing that will be happening To the actual release of the software to GitLab. So That's uh, you know, in a nutshell, that's that's our process Uh, so one other question and I need maybe you could address this one The open footprint forum, uh, you know, we've heard that there's some energy use cases and there's technology companies involved Is the work of the open footprint forum Going to be usable by other industries You know with other other needs and requirements Yes, that is the idea and that is the objective of the open forum We of the open footprint forum we intend and Ask for more participation by different industries As Asia just mentioned, we have some of the large energy suppliers and some of the large software companies We would certainly appreciate any And all help and information that would be provided Okay Thanks for that and uh, it's a one final question Uh, you know, it I think it's pretty obvious everybody that fit for this In trying to solve scope three data management issues that can either be speak to How will be used in Scopes one and two as well AJ, you want to take that question first and I'll look in and add on Yeah, sorry. Can you repeat it, Jim? Yeah, I You know, I think it's probably clear to everybody how this solves some problems with relative to scope three, but our Members and others anticipated to use this to track their scope one or two absolutely absolutely it Well, we started with scope and one in scope two as most of those that have been involved in this for a while and scope three is only sort of Become a little bit more mature and and people understand Um, how it works particularly because the WBCSD has been very um active in making sure that this exchange Within the supply chain is a critical part for the carbon footprints and the emphasis here on is on footprint, right? But yeah, the the the bulk of scope one and scope two particularly when you talk about energy companies That's what they have focused on and are still focusing on For a significant amount of time Do you want to add one thing to what Nainisha said and those that are on the call and they you are either in the software business or in the IT sector We've actually spent quite some time in coming to grips with the so-called embodied emissions embodied emissions is for example, if you would be using AI and you use a maybe a data center to to to Execute your AIs or you have your own environment, right? What is the carbon footprints and we are in the middle of that use case? It is a very interesting use case There's a lot of Stuff happening Almost on a daily basis around this topic So if there's anybody out there that says hey, I'd like to get involved not only by using AI as I mentioned within the architecture, but as well understanding the footprints of AI the carbon footprints Please sign up or reach out to us And I would just amplify that a little bit to say that Now when it comes to whether it's software development or just carbon emissions from running of a data center That's a pretty common use case across every industry And every industry is going to at some point need to And companies in those industries understand, you know, what does that look like for them? And there is a fair amount of work going on inside the forum to to tackle that exact Use case and understand, you know, what that looks like. So So one one final question on the q&a panel Are there similar or competitive carbon data model standards initiatives Out there that we're aware of An agent that's one private Yeah, when it comes to data models, of course, there are many I think What we have been trying to do and and I think we've been very successful in that Not making it application specific So this is a generic data model that you can use for exchanging data between various parties, right? And you can build applications on top of it Most data models that you will find out there are related to For example, the ERP systems. So, you know That that that is where we differ. This is a generic data model in second the assurance framework if One of the things that we have realized is critical in this Is the traceability and being able to work around verify data our data model incorporates an assurance framework and If you are interested in that you still need quite a bit of help with that to make sure That these lines with what all the assurance companies Need to deal with because for the next five to ten years It has already been forecasted that if you are going to become an auditor in a sustainability Project or whatever it is you will have your your future guaranteed and they need tools they need 21st century tools to be able to do it because right now if I would send an auditor to an organization to audit and Intertech does that right? They have to wait through thousands of spreadsheets, right now That is not a very efficient way of auditing an organization's Sustainability reporting Well, thanks for that I don't I've seen I've seen one other question about our links going to be published to the deliverables and the answer is yes when they're You know when they're made available on a few to get lab we will Make make folks aware of that and tell them where to go to get the content so yeah So that's that we are recording this session. So this recording will be available probably sometime tomorrow or early next week And we thank everybody for your time today in the AJ and ninesh. Thank you both for your contribution to the forum Thank you, Jim Thank you and thank you all Yep, have a great day everyone Thank you. Take care