design case study 1: energy, certificate, and emissions data management
Driving towards product-market fit for B2B energy data solutions–enabling energy intelligence and connecting buyers and suppliers through data transparency
Cleartrace 2020-2025
Role: Head of Product, Product Manager, Product Designer
Platform: Web application, API, reporting services
Team: Product/Design/Data/Technology
Framing the Problem
The Problem
Corporate energy buyers and power suppliers were struggling with fragmented, unreliable access to their energy, certificate, and emissions data. These gaps made it difficult to track sustainability impact, optimize procurement, and communicate results to stakeholders.
Cleartrace set out to become a system of record for energy and emissions data — helping corporates validate clean energy investments and helping suppliers better manage assets and customer engagement.
Market Gap
We recognized an underserved opportunity:
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Corporate buyers lacked tools to verify procurement impact with access to good data.
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Suppliers had no system to manage energy products and customer data across their contracts.
Cleartrace aimed to connect these two sides of the market with verified data and configurable transparency.
Business Context
Public ESG commitments and evolving regulatory expectations (e.g. Scope 2 emissions) required defensible, transparent data.
Sustainability was becoming a differentiator for large corporates — but only visionary companies had solutions.
Suppliers were facing growing pressure to deliver cleaner, traceable energy products but had little digital infrastructure to support it.
📊 Visual Aid: Diagram showing traditional siloed energy data flows vs. Cleartrace’s integrated data ecosystem.
Understanding the Users
Primary Users
Corporate Energy Buyers: Sustainability Managers, Energy Procurement, Tenant Relations
Suppliers: Clean Energy Product Managers, REC Managers, Customer Engagement leads
Organizations included JPMorgan, Iron Mountain, Brookfield, Shell, and Duke Energy.
Prior Workflow Challenges
Disparate data sources (utilities, meters, suppliers) with no aggregation or clarity.
No standard way to calculate emissions or allocate certificates.
No tools for suppliers to tailor offerings or engage customers.
Discovery and Empathy Work
Structured discovery sessions with stakeholders (e.g. Duke Energy) to map goals, pain points, and workflows.
Synthesized qualitative themes across multiple corporate and supplier interviews to define product requirements.
Used these insights to prioritize early product features and MVP direction.
📊 Visual Aid: Empathy maps or journey maps for key user types.
Strategy and Prioritization
Strategic Priorities
Built the corporate solution first to demonstrate proof of value and unlock energy procurement optimization use cases.
Identified shared patterns (e.g. tenant energy engagement) across verticals for modularity.
Expanded to suppliers to support white-labeled tools that improved the buyer experience.
Key Goals
Acquire and retain strategic customers.
Accelerate data onboarding.
Enable trusted, automated emissions reporting.
MVP and Traction
Built a modular corporate platform used by multiple verticals with differing needs.
Created a simple product corporates could use, later leveraged by suppliers in B2B2B use cases.
Product traction helped land pilot programs and scale platform revenue through network effects.
📊 Visual Aid: Timeline view of MVP evolution with strategic milestones (corporate buyer → supplier tools → full read/write APIs).
Design and Development
Key Features Delivered
Corporate platform for managing energy and emissions data
Supplier white-label customer engagement portal
Flexible, modular data warehouse (Postgres + DBT)
Read/write API infrastructure for seamless system integration
Design Process
Combined intuition-driven concepts with validation from discovery interviews
Created wireframes and high-level data architecture maps
Iterated prototypes through internal reviews and customer pilots
Balanced simplicity for casual users with depth for power users
Tradeoffs
Prioritized building clarity and traceability into complex, overlapping datasets
Navigated challenges around emissions methodologies, contract data, and supplier variability
Designed UI to support both standardized and bespoke customer needs
📊 Visual Aid: System architecture diagram + sample wireframe evolution
Outcomes and Iteration
Customer Impact
Enabled corporate buyers to quantify clean energy impact and optimize procurement
Helped suppliers track and allocate RECs more effectively
Created shared data context for both sides to engage and collaborate
Feedback & Iteration
Customers loved the data — but needed help interpreting insights
Added contextual analysis and visualization layers to guide actions
Continued refining data models to improve clarity and utility
Business Outcomes
Raised $20M Series B in 2022 based on product traction and roadmap
Signed major supplier customers (Duke, Shell, Brookfield Renewable)
Designed supplier management platform
📊 Visual Aid: Before/after user workflow or quote collage from customers
Reflection and Impact
Product Leadership Takeaways
Product-market fit is a moving target — especially in a visionary space
Timing and market readiness are as important as innovation
Early discovery across all market actors would have accelerated our supplier pivot
Building trust between product and sales is key when discovery and selling happen in parallel
Grew and retained a resilient team that embraced iterative development and user focus
Shaping the Market
Cleartrace became a recognized innovator in verified energy and emissions data — helping define what trustworthy data looks like in a fragmented ecosystem.
What I'd Do Differently
Deeper early discovery with a broader range of suppliers and buyers
Pivoted to supplier solutions sooner to build early competitive advantage
Invested earlier in customer-facing insight layers (not just data infrastructure)
Cleartrace’s Buyer and Supplier Solutions form a unified platform for tracking electricity and renewable energy certificate (REC) transactions, enabling end-to-end transparency for corporate buyers and power suppliers.
The Buyer Solution helps organizations measure energy use, track renewable generation, and plan emissions strategies, while the Supplier Solution equips providers with tools to manage portfolios and deliver data-driven value to their customers.
Together, they create a more connected, efficient, and transparent energy ecosystem.
From 2020 to 2025, I led the development of these solutions as Head of Product and Senior Director of Product Management at Cleartrace. In the early stages, I served as both lead designer and product manager, conducting user research, observing market trends, and shaping the initial product strategy and roadmaps for the Buyer Solution. As the product matured, I transitioned into a leadership role overseeing a team of PMs and designers, while continuing to guide product management and development efforts. When we expanded to include the Supplier Solution, I led the discovery process with energy suppliers and drove the design, feature planning, prioritization, and execution of the platform. Throughout, I worked closely with internal and external stakeholders to ensure the product evolved to meet the changing needs of the energy market.