The partnership will help businesses based in France to meet the national carbon tax reporting requirements, the companies said. The French National Carbon Tax is an outcome of the Grenelle de l’environnement, a public consultation on Climate Change organised by French Government in 2008.

The launch of the carbon tax in July 2009, values carbon at a starting price of 17€/tCO2, and will directly raise energy prices for companies and the public while increasing the need for carbon measurement and reporting.

This regulation will be soon be reinforced in 2011 by the introduction of mandatory carbon footprint reporting for all French companies with more than 500 employees. With the new regulations the need for software and services in this area is expected to grow significantly.

Laurent Molinari, directeur general of Zen’to, said: ”Given the anticipated French national carbon tax due to come into force this year, there is already increased interest and focus on carbon management across French businesses. Complying with these regulations, in addition to more general CSR reporting requirements, will become increasingly challenging to manage using spreadsheet-based approaches.”

He added, “The new reporting requirements will create a demand in automatic data collection and direct integration of carbon accounting systems with other enterprise data management systems. We believe that the accounting rigour and need to provide businesses with the flexibility and integration capability makes Greenstone’s Acco2unt software an ideal solution for our clients in France.”

Matthew Villiers, CEO of Greenstone, said: ”The partnership with Zen’to will provide Greenstone with greater access to the French carbon accounting market and provide our clients with an ideal implementation and local advisory partner on the ground.

” Zen’to’s particular strengths in Green IT also complement Greenstone’s specialist software capability in this area. Our initial pilot with Zen’to has already proven to be a success by providing accurate, fast data for a France based global brand – and we are very much looking to extend this service to other organisations.”

Greenstone’s said that it’s Acco2unt software product suite provides organisations with carbon management and accounting systems. It enables organisations to measure, manage, plan, store and report emission data, track performance on their carbon footprint at multiple organisational levels and to accurately model carbon footprint reduction strategies.