Accacia is tackling the big problem of real estate carbon emissions

The real estate and infrastructure sectors are responsible for about 40% of global carbon emissions, and part of the solution to the climate crisis is improving the way these sectors operate. Acacia offers large property owners the ability to track their carbon footprint in real time by integrating with ERP and property management systems such as Yardi. Already deployed in over 20 million square feet of real estate in Asia, it today announced $2.5 million in seed funding that will be used to expand into Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the United States and Canada .

Financing was provided by Accel and B Capital. Participants included Blume Ventures, Good Capital, Zerodha’s Rainmatter Fund, Loyal VC and angel investors.

Founded in 2022 by Annu Talreja, Piyush Chitkara and Jagmohan Garg. Prior to Accacia, Talreja worked in real estate for over 15 years at companies such as AECOM and Marriott.

During that time, he saw an evolution in how the industry was affected by weather-related events.

“Flash floods due to climate change, hurricanes and wildfires have affected real estate prices around the world, and rising energy costs have necessitated the use of alternative energy sources,” he told TechCrunch. “Unlike many other industries, the impact of climate change on real estate is ‘here and now’ and as someone who has worked in design, construction and investment, combining my skills has enabled me to see these impacts holistically. . Away.”

Accacia’s target audience is large real estate owners and asset managers, including REITs, equity and pension funds, and real estate developers. Most own and manage more than $1 billion in real estate assets under management. Accacia’s platform can track the carbon emissions of all asset classes, including data centers and commercial, retail and multi-family homes. It is also used by consulting firms that provide services to real estate and infrastructure companies that have set zero net goals.

Emissions tracked by Accacia include Scope 1 (direct emissions), Scope 2 (indirect emissions from purchases of generated energy), and Scope 3 (emissions from a company’s value chain) for properties, including embodied carbon, funded emissions, and emissions of operations.

An example of how Accacia can be used is a commercial real estate trust with assets in excess of 10 million square feet. After implementing Accacia, he reduced his direct emissions by 20% in the first six months of using the platform. Another client, a public hotel company with more than 100 assets, used Accacia to reduce its Scope 3 emissions through the platform’s supplier recommendation engine.

In a statement about the investment, Karan Mohla, partner at B Capital, told TechCrunch, “Like industry, real estate and infrastructure require a differentiated and focused approach to climate reporting, adaptation and mitigation. Accacia is taking a leading role in building a global platform to address this challenge. Capital ABC. We believe in his vision to build a scalable, technology SaaS platform to achieve zero goals for homeowners and asset managers.”