What is Hara’s Environmental and Energy Management Software?

Image from Flickr, by Jeremy Higgs

On Monday, the 18-month old company, Hara debuted their Environmental and Energy Management (EEM) software online. The EEM software identifies how efficient and eco-friendly a business, organization or government’s operations are with energy, water and waste.

Based in Menlo Park, California, Hara was founded by Amit Chatterjee and Ajit Nazre with $6 million in venture financing from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Coca-Cola Company and Palo Alto (a Northern California city ) have used Hara’s EEM software. According to Hara, Palo Alto saved $2 million by using the EEM software.

According to the website, Crunchbase, EEM is made up of the following modules:

• Discover – Aggregate environmental record information from relevant data sources in order to provide a comprehensive view of resource consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and environmental impact.
  
• Plan – Define strategies, optimize planning decisions, forecast reductions, identify objectives and metrics, and calculate timing and benefits for each initiative.
  
• Act – Manage the execution of environmental and energy programs, track results per initiative, and create an audit trail for any current or future regulatory requirements.
  
• Innovate – Implement the Hara methodology and leverage best practices for continuous improvements and business transformation. 

Hara means “fresh green” in Sanskrit. Chatterjee said Hara’s vision is to “enable a post-carbon economy in which organizations can grow and profit without depleting the earth’s resources.” insight, good analysis, and good data,” said Jacob. 

“We have the opportunity to write the encyclopedia of environmental efficiency, creating an unprecedented body of knowledge that will influence environmental impact reduction initiatives for years to come,” said Chatterjee. “We indicate how healthy a business is at consuming natural resources.”

“I'm not easily impressed," said Bryan Jacob, director of energy management and climate protection for Coca-Cola. However, after a presentation by Hara, he said to his boss, “I think we need to put this package into a test.”

Hara’s EEM software provides “effective environmental management requires good insight, good analysis, and good data,” said Jacob. “Hara goes beyond what so many other tools do. It helps calculate the inventory, establish the strategic targets, and has initiative-tracking features.”

“We're not finding a lot of resistance to the pricing,” said Nazre. “What is resonating with the customers the most is: how quickly will it pay for itself?”