But in a famously competitive environment, there is growing appreciation that working together in a common cause not only makes commercial sense, it also provides the best opportunity to develop world-class emission management solutions. When applied consistently and transparently, these solutions can deliver game changing results for the industry, society and our planet.

In this first of a short series of white papers, we set out ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½â€™s vision for global collaboration and co-innovation and the ecosystem in which it can be achieved. We explain the importance of achieving early consensus on the challenges we face, our collective aspirations for the future, and what the roadmap for action should look like.

Subsequent white papers will summarize the results of an in-depth industry feasibility study and provide more detail on how, together, we will deliver our shared vision and the benefits we expect to unlock. Most importantly we hope that colleagues and the industry will join us on this journey, adding their voices, skills and experience to this global effort.

But in a famously competitive environment, there is growing appreciation that working together in a common cause not only makes commercial sense, it also provides the best opportunity to develop world-class emission management solutions. When applied consistently and transparently, these solutions can deliver game changing results for the industry, society and our planet.

In this first of a short series of white papers, we set out ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½â€™s vision for global collaboration and co-innovation and the ecosystem in which it can be achieved. We explain the importance of achieving early consensus on the challenges we face, our collective aspirations for the future, and what the roadmap for action should look like.

Subsequent white papers will summarize the results of an in-depth industry feasibility study and provide more detail on how, together, we will deliver our shared vision and the benefits we expect to unlock. Most importantly we hope that colleagues and the industry will join us on this journey, adding their voices, skills and experience to this global effort.

Our vision

In its 2025 Global Energy Review, the International Energy Agency (IEA) finds room for guarded optimism, despite ongoing and unprecedented market turbulence. The IEA reports that although the global appetite for energy continues to grow, almost all additional demand is being satisfied by renewables and nuclear, while the growth of CO2 emissions from the sector is slowing compared to 2023, avoiding 2.6 billion tonnes of additional emissions per year.

With emissions management now as crucial as finance, accounting and the license to operate, energy businesses are increasingly seeking new ways to reduce their operational carbon footprint. Many have been capitalizing on ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½â€™s extensive expertise in digital transformation and emissions reduction consultancy, and now, increasingly in its ability to inspire and facilitate ground-breaking technological collaboration and co-creation.

By bringing the best brains, from industry, business, government and regulators together in a shared endeavor, ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½â€™s vision is to provide the ideal environment and world-class ecosystem in which robust, long-term, data and insight-driven emissions management solutions emerge, for universal use.

In May 2024, ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ launched its purpose-built Emission Experience Center (EEC), based in Stavanger, Norway, Europe’s largest producer of oil and gas, and a hub of regional energy expertise.

The EEC, designed in partnership with Amazon Web Services, is dedicated to advancing and accelerating emission management best practice and the development of scalable, interoperable and globally compliant solutions that can accelerate industry’s achievement of a net-zero future.

Overcoming net zero barriers through collaboration and co-innovation

Supporting national and international energy companies to achieve their net-zero objectives involves navigating an increasingly complex landscape. Constantly evolving regulations are producing compliance difficulties and potential financial and reputational risk.

Global data standards are inconsistently implemented, while a lack of unified data management reduces operational efficiency. Resource and skill constraints are hampering execution, siloed and fragmented systems are limiting collaboration, while partial digitalization, automation and incomplete integration are restricting the impact of advanced technologies.

A lack of clarity around end-to-end emission processes results in missed opportunities for improvement. Critically, with transitioning to net zero requiring significant investment, the business case and associated financial benefits are often not clearly articulated, while misleading claims can undermine trust and credibility. Most importantly, there is a cross-industry consensus that there are significant shortcomings in current emissions reporting practices and an urgent need for integrated systems and common standards that satisfy all national and international emissions reporting requirements, with the current box-ticking approach resulting in lost opportunities to utilize data and insights.

Accelerating solution development by pooling resources, ideas and knowledge

We believe that individual nations or businesses cannot solve these challenges alone, and that collaboration and co-innovation is essential to ensure the outcomes that we need, and to avoid the risks and huge costs of duplication. Partnerships bring together diverse expertise and complementary perspectives, fostering synergies among multiple stakeholders to develop comprehensive, scalable and interoperable solutions that can benefit businesses, regulators and society as a whole.

By pooling resources, ideas and knowledge, co-innovation accelerates the development and deployment of ground-breaking solutions and best practice that are not only compliant with all regulatory standards, but also optimize operational efficiency and sustainability, and enable continuous improvement.

Collaborative innovation can produce the vital industry infrastructure of the future, delivering a shared, standardized approach to interoperability, data transparency and consistency, unlocking priceless insights, cutting costs and improving efficiencies, equipping the industry with the business intelligence to accelerate its drive for net zero.

Successful change requires leadership, with a clear vision, to achieve the cultural and organizational shift to new ways of thinking and working, that values partnership in the pursuit of mutual interest as equally as commercial competition.

The EEC has been conceived and designed to help address and overcome these challenges. At its core will be an advanced Emission Foundation that acts as a transformation engine and innovation platform shared by key stakeholders throughout the value chain.

How the Emission Experience Center enables collaboration and co-innovation

The EEC is a collaboration between two of the world’s leading consultancy and climate technology companies, ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ and Amazon Web Services (AWS), coming together to establish a co-innovation ecosystem with the vision of supporting national and international energy companies in achieving their net-zero objectives.

Situated in the heart of Stavanger in Norway, Europe’s largest producer of oil and gas, and a hub of regional energy expertise, since 2024 the Emissions Experience Center has provided a collaborative space for innovation to prosper among diverse players in the energy industry, ranging from startups to large conglomerates.

Capitalizing on ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½’s extensive expertise in digital transformation, energy industry technology and innovation platforms and accelerators, the EEC operates as a collaborative hub within the company’s Norwegian operations. It features cross-functional teams from various departments, including business technology solutions, engineering, data science and sustainability, supported by ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½â€™s reinvention and experience partner, frog.

This collaborative environment promotes the sharing of knowledge and resources, enabling accelerated development of innovative products, technologies, updated processes, concepts and services, all aimed at improving emission management practices.

It facilitates partnership working using open innovation and data analysis platforms that provide the tools for analyzing and optimizing emissions data to drive informed decision-making, workshops, hackathons, and joint projects and events with industry partners. These activities ensure alignment and progress tracking, fostering a dynamic environment for continuous learning and innovation.

State-of-the-art collaborative workspaces are designed to inspire lateral thinking, creativity and innovation, driving the development of cutting-edge solutions for the energy industry’s transition towards a net-zero future.

The Emission Foundation: The EEC’s cornerstone for co-innovation

At the heart of our plans for the EEC will be the Emission Foundation, a transformation engine and innovation platform shared by stakeholders throughout the value chain. The Emission Foundation will be the embodiment of the EEC’s commitment to fostering co-innovation for a sustainable future.

Serving as both a starting point and an accelerator, the Foundation will drive collaborative efforts to address the critical challenges of emissions reduction and environmental sustainability, by providing the resources, support and guidance necessary to turn visionary concepts into reality. The Foundation will be built on open-source technologies and grounded in the DIFI principles of:

  • Data and Data Quality (D): Ensuring accurate and reliable data for audits and verification.
  • Interoperability (I): Promoting seamless integration, sharing, and collaboration among stakeholders.
  • Frequency (F): Transitioning from yearly assessments to real-time monitoring.
  • Insight and Knowledge (I): Facilitating a deeper understanding and informed decision-making.

By nurturing early-stage initiatives and accelerating their growth, the Foundation will ensure that the most promising innovations reach the market swiftly and effectively.

Grounded in robust processes and advanced digitalization, the Emission Foundation will enable companies to adopt a focused, insight-driven, and end-to-end approach to emission management and improvements, ensuring compliance, reducing costs, enhancing supply chain resilience, mitigating environmental risks, and strengthening corporate reputation.

Unlocking the benefits of collaboration and co-innovation

Bringing diverse stakeholders together will ensure the swift design and frictionless deployment of world-class solutions to shared emissions management challenges. Important benefits of this approach include:

  • Enhanced Emission Management Practices: By developing advanced technologies and process optimization solutions, companies can significantly improve their emission management practices. Up to 60%-time savings are achievable from interoperable systems and standardized data.
  • Improved Operational Efficiency: Collaborative efforts lead to streamlined operations, resulting in reduced emissions of up to 10%.
  • Regulatory Compliance: Co-innovation ensures adherence to evolving standards and regulatory requirements, reducing the risk of non-compliance.
  • Cost Reduction: Effective emission management practices lead to substantial cost savings in operations, quotas, taxes, and reporting, with up to 50% cost reductions in some activities.
  • Increased Reputation and Shareholder Value: Demonstrating a commitment to sustainability enhances a company’s reputation and increases shareholder value.
  • New Business Opportunities: Innovative solutions can open new revenue streams and business opportunities.
  • Sustainability: Driving the industry towards a net-zero future through sustainable practices and long-term environmental stewardship.
  • Strengthened Partnerships and Collaboration: Fostering a culture of continuous improvement and excellence through strong industry partnerships and collaboration.
  • Market Competitiveness: Companies that embrace co-innovation are better positioned to lead in the market, leveraging new technologies to gain a competitive edge.
  • Resilience: Advanced emission management solutions increase supply chain resilience and reduce environmental risks.

The EEC’s co-innovation ecosystem accelerates industry-wide access to transformative advancements, fostering a dynamic environment for continuous improvement and operational excellence.

Bringing our vision to reality: Listening to the Voice of the Industry

Reaching the broadest consensus possible on a standardized method of capturing, comparing and acting upon emissions data is an essential foundation stone on which to begin our journey.

The oil and gas industry on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) stands at a pivotal moment for emissions management. To capture the industry’s voice and opinion on the proposed creation of a National Emissions Database (NED), we conducted interviews with leaders and practitioners in a broad range of pivotal roles, including asset management, finance, ESG and technology.

Their perspectives blend optimism and pragmatism, shining light on incumbent solutions, opportunities and challenges, and essential factors to consider in supporting the decision to develop a National Emissions Database (NED) for Norway.

Across the board, these industry experts acknowledge significant shortcomings in current emissions management and reporting practices, and express a clear appetite for collaboration and innovation to improve data management, with the NCS positioned as a leader in transparent, efficient emissions reporting.

They repeatedly emphasized the need for higher data quality, more integrated systems, and common standards to satisfy both national and international requirements. These include the EU Emissions Trading System, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, and upcoming Securities and Exchange Commission climate disclosure rules.

In our second white paper we synthesize insights from our interviews in four focus areas, namely:

  • Current Approaches to Emissions Reporting
  • Industry Sentiment and Outlook
  • Challenges
  • Opportunities
  • Next steps

Crucially, several interviewees envisioned an NED as a catalyst that could eventually scale into a Corporate Emissions Database (CED) across companies, ultimately potentially feeding into a global Emissions Data Universe (EDU) with cross-jurisdictional impact. Across all interviews, opportunities presented by an NED clustered around four themes – efficiency, insight, transparency, and collaboration. With the right design, an NED could enable faster, more streamlined reporting, drive continuous improvement through benchmarking and analytics, build trust through shared, auditable data, and unlock new forms of business value and cross-sector cooperation.