Atlassian Partners with Ever.green to Raise the Bar for Addressing Scope 2 Emissions

Atlassian and Ever.green are partnering to enable new renewable energy projects in southern Alabama with a focus on ensuring additionality, maximizing avoided emissions, and benefiting the surrounding community. 

Today, companies are looking for opportunities to go beyond purchasing unbundled RECs in the spot market, knowing research has illustrated the limitations of impact. Ever.green’s platform enables companies of all sizes to (1) directly enter into fixed-price VPPAs that deliver high-impact RECs and (2) buy transferable tax credits that help fund new projects.

“Since we began building Atlassian’s climate program in 2016, we’ve had a long-term goal to prioritize additionality. Over the years, we have evaluated many options and are thrilled to have found the right partner in Ever.green.

Together we’ve built an approach that meets our smaller load requirement while prioritizing each project’s impact on its local community. We hope this example encourages other companies considering additionality to move faster in building new renewable projects.”

- Atlassian’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Jessica Hyman.

The companies co-developed a detailed impact scorecard to evaluate all renewable energy projects supported by Ever.green and its customers. The scorecard is an evolution of Salesforce’s More Than a Megawatt framework, adding a test for additionality and emphasizing emissionality (building on dirtier grids to maximize the climate impact of a new project) and co-benefits for local communities. 

Ever.green’s test for additionality looks for evidence of a material impact on the viability of a project — meaning that without the additional funding, the project might not happen. This requirement is written into the legal contract for each of Ever.green’s projects. Ever.green then works with its environmental tech partner, Watttime, to assess the grid conditions at the time of the renewable energy production, which timestamps each REC and quantifies the resulting avoided carbon emissions. All together, this unique approach provides a framework for redefining how companies address their scope 2 emissions. 

“With our focus on additionality and emissionality, we are bringing real impact to the climate fight with our corporate customers,” said Ever.green Co-founder, Michael Leggett. “We recognize and very much appreciate Atlassian’s leadership and partnership in our shared mission to accelerate the transition to renewable energy.”

Atlassian's agreement with Ever.green will cover their U.S. office and work-from-home load. One of the first projects is a four-site solar installation for Dothan City Schools, a public school system in southeast Alabama. The total system is expected to generate nearly 3,200 MWh of energy per year (covering more than half of the aggregate facilities load) and displace ~1,800 tC02e annually. In addition to the climate benefits and financial savings for the school, this project delivers a number of co-benefits for the school and community, including providing students with first-hand access to clean energy systems and innovative practices like agrivoltaics, the blending of solar and agriculture.

With the game changing legislation of the Inflation Reduction Act, companies now have the ability to buy clean energy tax credits without having to own the project. This is yet another way to help accelerate the clean energy transition and an exciting expansion of Ever.green’s marketplace.

Together, Atlassian and Ever.green are accelerating the clean energy transition and making a real impact in addressing climate change. As more and more companies bring their capital and resources to the table, the more likely we are to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.