In just seven years since its founding in 2016, GHGSat, a Montreal-based satellite firm, has led the way in climate monitoring. They have deployed 14 satellites purpose-built to detect emissions across various industrial point sources. The company’s CEO, Stéphane Germain, announced a significant new partnership with ExxonMobil Corp. to monitor emissions at the oil giant’s sites across Canada, the United States, and Asia. This agreement is a testament to GHGSat’s dedication to helping industries of all kinds shrink their carbon footprints.
In GHGSat’s case, during just the past few months it has completed $47 million equity and debt financing focused on accelerating its global expansion. With this funding, the company wants to enhance its capacity to independently track greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, it will take aim at methane, one of the most potent drivers of climate change. Germain went on to explain that the U.S. government has significantly reduced its greenhouse gas monitoring capacity. GHGSat is doing really well and getting increasing interest from clients.
Clients are playing the long game, Germain said, pointing out that businesses are understanding that they need to take climate change seriously. “They understand that in the medium to long term, their end customers really care about climate change and that they are going to have to be both the lowest cost and the lowest carbon footprint producer of oil or gas in order to win in the long term.”
GHGSat’s technology is based on the principle that most gases absorb light at characteristic wavelengths, much like a spectral fingerprint. This innovative approach enables the satellites to effectively detect emissions from oil and gas facilities, coal mines, landfills, and agricultural feedlots. Germain admitted that in areas such as Canada, emissions are so low that they’re undetectable. This provides them with a near–invisible cloak hundreds of kilometers wide.
The company’s protective programming reaches farther than oil and gas surveillance alone. GHGSat has worked on quantifying methane emissions from decomposing matter in palm oil ponds across 12 countries, showcasing its commitment to addressing global environmental challenges. After the devastating fires that swept through California last year, GHGSat stepped up to provide their satellites in the fight to find gas leaks. This response was meant to showcase the power of its technology.
Germain envisions a future where industrial facilities worldwide are monitored for both carbon and methane emissions on a near-daily basis. He imagines a time when food packages would carry not just nutrition labels but carbon footprint metrics. This new advance gives consumers more information — which can dramatically shape how they purchase.
So it’s really, really interesting. It’s good business and it’s good for the planet. Germain added, underscoring the companion environmental and market-protection features of GHGSat’s work.
Canada is still furiously paddling upstream toward its 2022 methane strategy target. The country recently committed to reducing oil and gas methane emissions by at least 75 percent from 2012 levels by 2030, putting GHGSat’s work in Canada at a premium. Germain points out that reducing methane emissions from landfills tends to be inexpensive and can even be profitable for companies involved.
We are living through an urgent crisis of climate change that requires us to act now. So, we can no longer just talk about it! Today, he went on, to illustrate why time is of the essence on environmental action.
