Amy Brachio Takes the Helm at Carbon Measures After EY Exit

After three decades with EY, Amy Brachio has taken on a fresh role of CEO at Carbon Measures.

The former Global Vice Chair for Sustainability at EY took a short sabbatical in late summer, but she is not ready to hang up her sustainability boots just yet.

Her new role will see her lead a coalition of major corporations, including BlackRock, ExxonMobil, Santander, BASF, Linde and Mitsui, in a campaign to rethink how carbon accounting is done in the corporate world.

Carbon Measures aims to address what its team and backers see as a series of fundamental flaws in the way emissions reporting works at the moment.

The initiative represents a departure from the GHG Protocol, the de-facto global standard used by the vast majority of S&P 500 companies.

Critics like BlackRock and ExxonMobil argue that the current system, developed in the late 1990s, allows multiple actors to count the same CO₂ molecules.

However, those responsible for the GHG Protocol's design counter that double-counting is one of the framework's "greatest strengths" because it encourages "comprehensive" greenhouse gas management.

Amy's sustainability pedigree

Through the years at EY, Amy drove offerings to help thousands of global clients achieve their sustainability goals, all while leading the company's ambitious 40% carbon emission reduction by 2025.

She also established and directed EY's Business Consulting practice, leading more than 40,000 professionals globally.

Amy co-chaired the S30 group of Chief Sustainability Officers and serves on the WEF's Global Future Council, which focuses on the economics of an equitable transition.

In 2024, Sustainability Magazine ranked her #4 in our Top 100 Women in Sustainability edition.

Amy will bring all of her technical expertise and consulting nous to her new role at Carbon Measures, where attention to detail, wide-lens thinking and charismatic advocacy will all go hand in hand.

As is always the case in the trenches of sustainability, data will be a cornerstone of Amy's work going forward. For Amy, "precise and comparable data has proven something of a holy grail" in emissions tracking, and she argues that the current approach "simply won't be sufficient going forward".

The controversy surrounding double-counting in carbon accounting remains contentious, though. Proponents of today's prevailing method argue that it incentivises multiple actors to reduce emissions, rather than creating confusion about overall pollution levels.

Whether Carbon Measures can bridge this divide while attracting the scale of industry participation needed remains to be seen, but its group of 20 foundational backers comprises some of the world's largest firms, so things are already moving quickly.

Why Carbon Measures has cross-industry support

Amy sees the next few years as pivotal in the race to net zero. "We are at a critical point in history," she explains.

"We see and feel the impact of climate change in our daily lives, and collectively, we aren’t moving fast enough to materially reduce carbon emissions," she adds.

Speaking to why her mission has such a broad appeal, Amy frames the issue as a universal one.

"We also know that people around the world need homes with reliable, affordable energy, roads, hospitals, data centres and modern infrastructure," she says.

Standardised, optimised data protocols allow corporate and political actors to see things clearly when it comes to sustainability, which is what Amy and her team are now advocating for.

"We’re advancing a ledger-based carbon accounting framework that provides accurate, verifiable, and timely company- and product-level data," she explains.

"We’re united in the belief that when measurement is accurate and regulatory standards are clear, markets drive competition and innovation toward the most efficient solutions."

The perspective of the Carbon Measures coalition

The leaders of Carbon Measures' members have been vocal in their support for the coalition.

Ana Botin, Executive Chair of Santander, says that accurate and transparent calculation of carbon emissions "is the foundation for meaningful climate action."

Francois Jackow, CEO of Air Liquide, another backer of the initiative, said harmonised product-level carbon intensity standards will enable investors "to reward low-carbon solutions."

Exxon's CEO, Darren Woods, believes that "the first step to reducing global emissions is to know where they're coming from."

"Today, we don't have an accurate system to do this," he adds.

The oil major has been advocating for a global system for measuring the carbon intensity of different products for several years.

Amy views this swell of enthusiasm for change as a chance to get things right in the lead up to the 2050 deadline.

"I see an incredible opportunity to build on existing progress and apply proven accounting principles to what the world needs most: accurate measurement to drive real carbon emissions reductions."