Can Watershed corner the market for carbon accounting?

thing in business depends on where you are. Bars in San Francisco tend to be abuzz with talk of enterprise software. Regulars at City of London pubs may discuss sustainable investing, and in particular concern for . Combine the two subjects and you have a winner—both as a topic of conversation and, hopes Watershed, a fast-growing climate-software startup, as a business proposition.Watershed seems an unlikely subject of animated discussion. It helps companies measure and report their carbon emissions. It is, in other words, a firm of carbon accountants—not usually a profession to set pulses racing. What makes it titillating is its potentially vast market. Over a third of the world’s investable assets, or some $35trn-worth, falls under the umbrella, and a large chunk of that is chiefly about the . Someone has to count the emissions from all those assets. And Watershed could be that someone, reckons a clutch of worthies from Silicon Valley (John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital, veteran venture capitalists, co-led its last funding round) and beyond (Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England turned climate warrior, is an adviser). In January the firm raised $70m at a valuation of $1bn.