As more organizations commit to decarbonization, understanding the landscape of corporate clean energy goals has never been more important. Whether you’re just beginning to evaluate your options or refining an existing strategy, the approach you choose will shape your emissions outcomes, financial exposure, and long-term credibility.
This video breaks down the three most common corporate clean energy goals and the key trade-offs between them:
No single corporate clean energy goal is right for every organization. The best choice depends on your operations, your grid, your risk tolerance, and the standards you’re held to—whether that’s RE100, Science Based Targets, green bond commitments, or internal net zero pledges.
Verse helps organizations cut through that complexity. Verse’s Arya platform uses generative AI and predictive modeling to analyze the cost, risk, emissions impact, and carbon-free energy profile of each corporate clean energy goal—so your team can make a data-driven, future-proofed procurement decision in minutes, not months.
Welcome. This video will explain the three most common corporate clean energy goals and how organizations can use them to shape a smarter, more resilient energy strategy.
The first corporate clean energy goal is 100% renewable energy. In this scenario, a company aims to match its annual power consumption with clean energy. For instance, if Company A uses 100,000 megawatt-hours of electricity between January 1st and December 31st, it will purchase 100,000 megawatt-hours of clean energy in that same period.
100% RE involves matching annual energy consumption with an equal amount of renewable energy. Clean energy purchases are not restricted to the grid in which the consumption occurs — meaning a company can purchase renewable energy wherever it is least cost, without considering where it operates. For example, Company A, whose operations are in Louisiana, could buy renewable energy from projects in any grid.
The second corporate clean energy goal is carbon matching, also known as emissions matching or emissionality. The goal is to match a company’s annual emissions associated with its energy consumption with an equal amount of avoided emissions from clean energy purchases. So if Company A emits 40,000 tons of carbon in a year, it will procure clean energy that avoids 40,000 tons of carbon emissions over the same period.
Like 100% RE, carbon matching involves annual matching — but focuses on carbon emissions rather than megawatt-hours. There is no location requirement, but location matters, as each grid has a different carbon intensity. This approach prioritizes clean energy purchases that deliver the greatest emissions impact per dollar.
For instance, a company pursuing carbon matching would rather buy solar power in Kentucky than in California, because Kentucky’s mostly fossil fuel grid has a higher carbon emissions intensity than California’s, which already has a significant amount of clean energy and therefore relatively lower emissions intensity.
The third corporate clean energy goal is 24/7 carbon-free energy, or CFE. Unlike the two previous goals, this one involves hourly matching and includes a location requirement. 24/7 CFE aims to match every megawatt-hour of a company’s electricity consumption — every hour of every day — with carbon-free electricity sources in the same grid. It represents the end state of a fully decarbonized electricity system.
If a company matches 100% of its hourly consumption with CFE, it achieves a CFE score of 100%. If it matches 80% of its hourly consumption, its CFE score is 80%.
Companies may pursue one of these corporate clean energy goals, combine them, or add constraints to future-proof their emissions impact or minimize financial risk. For instance, a company may target 100% RE but also add a location constraint — meaning it wants to match its annual electricity use with clean energy sourced from projects in the same grid as its operations. In that case, a company with 100,000 megawatt-hours of annual load in Texas would procure 100,000 megawatt-hours each year from clean energy projects also located in Texas.
It can be very difficult to choose the right corporate clean energy goal for your business without understanding the trade-offs involved.
Verse’s Arya platform helps companies evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of different corporate clean energy approaches. Using generative AI and predictive modeling, Arya analyzes and illustrates the cost, risk, emissions, and carbon-free energy profile of each option — giving customers a holistic view to determine their optimal, data-driven, future-proofed clean power strategy.
