CEO Pete Davis built environmental technology startup GreenPrint with a keen eye for payments and financial transactions.
The Emory University graduate started his career in Atlanta’s bustling financial services sector before choosing a desk at the Atlanta Tech Village to start GreenPrint in 2014.
GreenPrint calculates the environmental footprint of client operations and provides a list of suggestions on how the company could be more sustainable in terms of carbon emissions, water usage, plastic waste and renewable energy. Davis says GreenPrint collects environmental data and analyzes goals similar to how a financial company may approach transactions and balance sheets.
GreenPrint’s team of about 30 people give sustainability advice and data to companies in 16 countries. The startup, which is in the Techrise building in Buckhead, is now expanding its offerings and hiring leadership to head these efforts.
GreenPrint Labs launched earlier this year as a consulting arm of the startup, capturing a growing trend of companies incorporating sustainability efforts into their operations to attract consumers or employees.
“It’s really enabled us to meet customers where they’re at," said Davis, who founded GreenPrint with Trenton Spindler.
With GreenPrint Labs, companies can get an assessment of their environmental impact and suggested strategies on how to mitigate it. Labs also evaluates how the company’s sustainability efforts compare to others in its industry.
That information is important for business in a world where people are increasingly concerned with the environmental, social and corporate governance of the businesses where they work and shop, Davis said. Six in 10 consumers say they are willing to change their shopping habits to reduce negative environmental impacts, according to a 2020 IBM Institute for Business Value.
“Companies may be trying to attract purpose-driven consumers, appeal to employees or do it for the public market and shareholders who are demanding sustainability,” Davis said about GreenPrint Labs customers.
Lars Kvale, the former head of business development for environmental tech company APX, will lead GreenPrint Labs. Scott Matthews, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon, will join the startup’s advisory board.
The new product compliments GreenPrint’s original offerings, which give companies more concrete and long-term strategies and goals for decreasing environmental harm, Davis said.
For example, GreenPrint works with CompostNow, a startup that picks up, creates and delivers compost to homes and offices. CompostNow has diesel trucks to make the deliveries but worked with GreenPrint to reduce other carbon emissions so the company can have a carbon neutral fleet.
Davis says the city’s Fortune 500 residents and burgeoning tech scene helped the startup grow.
Local fintech giant Fleetcor (NYSE: FLT) was one of GreenPrint’s first customers. GreenPrint says it has helped the corporation offset over 7.7 million tons of carbon in six years.
GreenPrint received an initial investment from Atlanta Tech Village founder and serial entrepreneur David Cummings and participated in the Engage innovation program, which brings together venture funding and corporate collaboration.
