Startup Series: SustainCERT

Today's guest is Marion Verles, Co-Founder & CEO of SustainCERT. SustainCERT is the leading global carbon emissions accounting and verification platform for carbon markets and corporate value chains. Using technology to simplify processes, SustainCERT helps project developers and corporates quantify and verify carbon emissions accurately. The company also certifies carbon credits and corporate claims, confirming they align with leading international frameworks such as Gold Standard for the Global Goals, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, and the Sustainable Development Goals. Before founding SustainCERT, Marion served as CEO of the Gold Standard Foundation. During her tenure at Gold Standard, she led the development of a groundbreaking climate + sustainable development impact standard: Gold Standard for the Global Goals. Earlier in her career, Marion was a founding team member of the Climate Ledger Initiative, founded and helmed Nexus for development, and served as a civil society observer to the Climate Investment Fund managed by the World Bank. I was eager to sit down with Marion because standardizing, verifying, and certifying carbon offsets is vital when thinking about decarbonizing our world. We dive into SustainCERT's focus areas, the Gold Standard certification process, and Marion's motivations for founding the startup. Marion also explains downstream versus upstream paths for carbon credits, the existing carbon market, and why certifying offsets is complex. We cover many essential topics in this episode, and Marion is an excellent guest. Enjoy the show! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests. Episode recorded December 14th, 2021