By: Christina Deligianni, CEO at Verimpact
As global energy systems undergo the most significant transformation in decades, the availability, credibility, and interoperability of data have become central to the success of the energy transition. This was underscored during two technical discussions I participated in representing Verimpact at the end of November 2025 at the International Energy Forum (IEF) in Riyadh: the Dialogue on Energy Market Data Transparency and the Roundtable on Building Carbon Management & Hydrogen Markets.
Across both sessions, one conclusion stood out: the future of investable, scalable, and credible carbon and hydrogen markets depends on the data systems that underpin them.
Today’s challenge is no longer data scarcity but data fragmentation. Multiple reporting frameworks, inconsistent MRV schemes, variable definitions, and incompatible data structures create friction for investors, distort market signals, and undermine policy coherence. The result is a misalignment between ambitions and the ability of financial institutions to price risk accurately and deploy capital at speed.
The Structural Data Problem
Despite the rapid evolution of sustainability reporting standards, CSRD/ESRS in the EU, IFRS S2 globally, GRI guidelines, national hydrogen certification schemes, and emerging CCUS protocols, to name a few, there is still little interoperability between them. Organizations operating across markets face duplicative reporting obligations, conflicting methodologies, and varying degrees of verification rigor. This undermines comparability, increases compliance costs, and slows investment decisions.
The problem is particularly acute in CCUS and hydrogen markets. These technologies require robust, credible measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems to assess lifecycle emissions, capture rates, leakage risks, storage integrity, and carbon intensity across different production pathways. Without consistent MRV, projects cannot be certified, credits cannot be trusted, and financing frameworks cannot rely on the data they receive.
Investors are clear: they need investment-grade, standardized, and auditable data to develop bankable business models for CCUS and hydrogen. Without this, perceived risk remains high, limiting capital deployment.
Toward Best Practices in MRV for CCUS and Hydrogen
A credible MRV system must be built on several core elements:
- Clear system boundaries and lifecycle methodologies, covering production, transport, transformation, and end-of-life stages.
- High-frequency, high-quality data, enabled by advanced monitoring tools including continuous measurement, remote sensing, metering, and digital traceability.
- Independent verification, ensuring that data, calculations, and assumptions are auditable and comparable across jurisdictions.
- Granularity and transparency, allowing markets and regulators to understand performance at asset, project, and route levels.
Standardization is achievable. By developing common MRV building blocks, regulators and governments can adapt shared frameworks to their contexts while ensuring mutual recognition across borders. This is essential for cross-border hydrogen trade, CCUS crediting mechanisms, and long-term offtake contracts.
Digital MRV, supported by interoperable data formats and automated validation, can further enhance accuracy, reduce administrative burdens, and increase confidence among investors and certification bodies.
The Critical Role of AI-Enabled Sustainability Intelligence
As reporting frameworks expand, the complexity of compliance grows exponentially. Manual processes cannot keep up. AI-enabled platforms offer a transformative solution.
At Verimpact, we are building an integrated sustainability intelligence platform designed to support companies, financiers, and regulators in managing non-financial risks with the same rigor as financial ones. Our technology automates double materiality assessments, validates non-financial data at scale, harmonizes disclosures across frameworks, and links sustainability performance to risk indicators and strategic decision-making.
AI can help identify inconsistencies, fill data gaps, and interpret complex policy signals in real time. By connecting technical data, regulatory requirements, and market expectations, platforms like Verimpact provide the analytical backbone needed for credible, auditable, and investment-grade sustainability reporting.
Ultimately, AI-enabled tools support the shift from retrospective compliance to continuous risk management and transition planning—a shift essential for markets as dynamic as hydrogen and CCUS.
Conclusion
The next decade of climate action will be driven not only by technology development, policy ambition, or capital availability, but by the quality, consistency, and intelligence of the data infrastructure that connects them all.
Standardized MRV, interoperable reporting frameworks, AI-enabled analytics, and global data transparency platforms form the architecture that will determine whether carbon and hydrogen markets scale successfully.
Building that architecture is both a challenge and an opportunity—and Verimpact is committed to being part of the solution.
