Accenture Partners With Climate Risk Software Provider Cervest

Global IT consulting firm Accenture is working with Cervest, an AI-powered climate intelligence (CI) platform, to assist end-customers with risk management.

According to the two companies, Accenture's ESG capabilities -- coupled with Cervest's climate software -- will help customers to:

• Assess and mitigate physical asset risk based on different climate scenarios;
• better plan for resilience and inform net zero strategy; and
• make climate-related disclosures more transparent.

The collaboration involves Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, an engagement and early investment program that connects emerging technology startups with the Global 2000 to "fill strategic innovation gaps." Accenture did not disclose whether it has made a strategic investment in Cervest.

Capgemini -- an Accenture rival on some fronts -- announced a similar relationship with Cervest in October 2022.

Cervest: Climate Software Business History

Cervest, based in London, England, was founded in 2015 and raised $30 million in Series A funding in May 2021. Molten Ventures (formerly Draper Esprit) led the round. The company had 115 employees listed on LinkedIn as of May 4, 2023.

Cervest customers often use the software platform to de-risk decisions on critical assets such as hospitals, data centers, airports, warehouses and investments, the company said. Customers can also analyze climate risks and opportunities on millions of global assets – simultaneously across multiple emissions scenarios, time horizons and climate hazards, including heat stress, drought, wildfire, flooding and precipitation, Cervest asserts.

In a prepared statement about the Accenture-Cervest relationship, Vrushali Gaud, managing director, Sustainability Services at Accenture, said: “As climate-related physical and transition risks become more prevalent, companies need to embed climate considerations into risk mitigation and put effective climate strategy and adaptation at the core of long-term business resilience. By combining our newly launched Climate.MAP Accelerator with Cervest’s pioneering climate data modeling and machine learning technology, Accenture continues to expand its capabilities to help clients across industries make informed sustainability decisions by analyzing climate risk-related data to address the impacts of climate change.”

Added Cervest founder and CEO Iggy Bassi (pictured, top of page): “Businesses around the world are under mounting pressure to disclose their climate-related financial risk and increase transparency about ESG strategy, governance, risks and opportunities. Accenture’s holistic approach, carbon intelligent technology and expertise in solving sustainability challenges, combined with Cervest’s unified CI capabilities, will help clients protect their people, assets, finances, operations and supply chains from the growing threat of physical and transition risk. Not only will unified CI enable organizations to accelerate scenario planning, it will also expand the network of science-backed insights available to make key transactional decisions and meet reporting standards.”

Accenture Sustainability and Net Zero Consulting Initiatives

Meanwhile, Accenture continues to build sustainability-related relationships worldwide. Key moves include acquiring industrial artificial intelligence (AI) company Flutura in March 2023, and partnering with Planet Labs for satellite imagery data a few months earlier.

During a March 2023 earnings call, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet described how the company's Industry X business has "digital engineering capabilities" that are "advancing sustainability services." One example involves working with Recharge Industries, a battery research and production company in Australia, to help design and engineer one of the world’s largest lithium-ion battery facilities, Sweet noted. Once built, the facility will generate up to 30-gigawatt hours of storage capacity per year, she said.