Cambridge start-up Energy Points hopes to make energy efficiency easier to measure

By Erin Ailworth, Globe Staff

Energy Points, a Cambridge start-up, is using $3 million from investors to launch a software platform that will help companies measure their sustainability efforts, such as by cutting greenhouse gas emissions or becoming more energy efficient.

The software will work like a currency converter, but instead of changing US dollars to some other form of money, it will turn standard energy measurements -- for example, tons of carbon dioxide or kilowatts of hours of electricity -- into the equivalent amount of energy used per gallon of gasoline. Each gallon will equal one “energy point,” which companies can then use to evaluate how their different sustainability efforts compare to one another.

The idea is to give businesses “clear, consistent evidence of their own sustainability,” said Energy Points chief executive Ory Zik. “By converting all energy sources and domains to one simple metric, businesses can now make decisions based on their true financial and environmental impact.”