Sesame Sustainability: Process modelling software for the cost and carbon of industrial decarbonisation

Overview

Sesame Sustainability is a 2023 spinout of the MIT Energy Initiative, where its technology began in 2017 as SESAME, the Sustainable Energy System Analysis Modelling Environment. MIT News described the research tool in 2020 as covering more than 1,000 energy pathways and about 90 percent of energy-related emissions, and its architecture was published that year in Applied Energy. The company licensed the SESAME intellectual property from MIT and rebuilt it as commercial software for energy producers and heavy industry, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Its position is planning rather than reporting. Where carbon accounting tools multiply activity data by average emissions factors, Sesame builds a process model of each asset from mass and energy balances and calculates levelised cost and carbon intensity from the same model, so a change in an assumption moves both. The company describes the product as working alongside carbon accounting systems, not replacing them: it answers which decarbonisation route to fund, not what last year's footprint was.

What sets it apart is the research record and the published price. The company reports more than $7 million of MIT research funding, more than 30 contributing researchers and more than twenty peer-reviewed publications since 2018, and lists them on its history page. SESAME work also fed the National Petroleum Council's Harnessing Hydrogen study for the US Secretary of Energy. Unusually for industrial modelling software, it publishes a list price. The company is small, with nine employees in LinkedIn company data, and its commercial references are still early.

Offering

Sesame sells annual software licences for one modelling platform, which it has also marketed as Sesame One, plus a facility product called Meridian and an AI agent.

The platform

• Process modelling. More than 200 built-in process nodes describe assets by feedstock, utility consumption, mass and energy balance, cost and emissions. Users can add custom processes in a model builder, from a structured Excel model, or by connecting an Aspen Plus simulation (FAQ).
• Systems and supply chains. Nodes connect into full production and supply chains, from plant gate to shipping, with global data for grid emissions, combustion, commodity costs, energy prices, policy incentives and crude assays.
• Costs and carbon intensity. Levelised cost, discounted cash flow and Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions come from one model, with per-unit product carbon intensity for programmes such as CBAM, the US 45V hydrogen credit and clean steel standards.
• Scenarios and optimisation. Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis show which variables drive results, and optimisation works toward cost and emissions targets across sites and portfolios.

Meridian

Meridian analyses a company's facilities in days and recommends the lowest-cost mix of electrification, microgrids, battery storage and demand response, in place of a traditional energy audit. It won the electrification service challenge in ABB's 2026 Startup Challenge.

Pricing

All licences are annual (pricing). The academic edition is the full platform, and it is the modelling tool in MIT's open online course ENE.002x.

Technology

Sesame is cloud software. Each asset is a first-principles process node; nodes are wired into systems and connected to global datasets, and the engine computes total system emissions, per-unit carbon intensity, levelised cost and cash flows together. The research version was written in MATLAB and later moved to Python; the history page links an archived Python release that is no longer maintained, while the commercial edition is built on licensed SESAME IP.

Data in and out

• Built-in data: global grid emissions factors, combustion data, commodity costs, energy prices, policy incentives and crude assay data.
• Upstream lifecycle data: integration with the ecoinvent database.
• Customer data: any parameter can be overridden with plant-specific costs, site-measured emissions factors or contract terms, and parameter sources are versioned for an audit trail.
• Custom models: structured Excel models and existing Aspen Plus simulations can be imported as nodes and shared across a project or an organisation.
• Outputs: Excel workbooks, PDF reports and JSON through a REST API, plus a Python command-line interface (FAQ). Enterprise licences add integration with customer data and enterprise systems, but no API reference or connector list is published.

The platform works from engineering, cost and contract inputs, not live operational data, and it has no documented connection to plant historians, meters or building systems.

Security

Sesame completed a SOC 2 Type 2 audit in May 2025 covering security, availability and confidentiality; customers can request the report, which is not public. Enterprise customers can run on single-tenant, dedicated infrastructure with their data and models isolated from other organisations. Enterprise licences include single sign-on. No ISO 27001 certificate, trust centre, hosting region or penetration testing statement is published.

Methods

The modelling methods are published in peer-reviewed journals including Applied Energy and Environmental Science & Technology, and the company says its product carbon intensity methods are developed with the EFI Foundation through published case studies on sustainable aviation fuel and steel.

Customers

Sesame's published references are a small number of large energy companies, a technology partner and policy studies.

JERA Americas

JERA Americas was a member of Sesame's design partner programme in 2024, using the platform to prioritise decarbonisation investments, and was named as a deployed user when the company launched Sesame One in July 2025 (PR Newswire).

PETRONAS

In September 2026 Sesame announced an engagement with PETRONAS on decarbonisation planning. Both parties describe it as exploratory and limited to an agreed scope.

Chevron

The July 2025 launch release names Chevron as a strategic partner that collaborated on the platform's development, rather than as a customer.

ABB

Winning ABB's 2026 Startup Challenge brought $30,000 of collaboration funding and a six-month project to build Meridian into a minimum viable product with ABB, pilot it with ABB customers and support ABB's Navigate energy advisers (ABB).

Policy and research studies

SESAME technology was used in the National Petroleum Council's Harnessing Hydrogen report and in the EFI Foundation's U.S. Hydrogen Infrastructure Action Plan. The company's own analyses cover sustainable aviation fuel pathways under CORSIA, green hydrogen siting, hydrogen trucks, data centre power and facility resilience (insights). These are published studies, not customer case studies with measured outcomes.

Markets

Sesame targets energy producers, heavy industry and the investors and public bodies that plan their transition. Its home page names five industries: low-carbon fuels including hydrogen, ammonia and sustainable aviation fuel; renewable electricity; data centres; oil and gas; and iron and steel. Typical buyers are strategy, engineering, sustainability and capital allocation teams comparing electrification, carbon capture, hydrogen, storage and supplier changes before committing capital.

Its published work is concentrated on US policy, including the 45V hydrogen credit, the regional clean hydrogen hubs and Washington State fuel incentives, with growing attention to the EU's CBAM and to aviation's CORSIA scheme.

Channels

The company sells directly from Cambridge, Massachusetts, with academic licences as a second channel: the platform is the modelling tool in MIT's ENE.002x course, taught by an MIT Sloan professor and Sesame's chief executive. ABB's Startup Challenge gives it a pilot route to ABB's industrial customers. Named collaborators on its site include the EFI Foundation, Newlab, H2DI and Virginia Tech's chemical engineering department.

Company

Sesame Sustainability was founded in 2023 by Emre Gençer (chief executive), Jim Owens (head of engineering) and Paul Sizaire (head of product), according to its seed announcement and team page. Gençer led the SESAME project at the MIT Energy Initiative as its lead developer and later principal investigator, with sponsors that, the company says, included ExxonMobil, Shell and the International Energy Agency's Gas and Oil Technology Collaboration Programme.

Funding

In June 2024 the company announced a $2.4 million seed round co-led by Flybridge and Powerhouse Ventures (The SaaS News); Flybridge lists Sesame in its portfolio. In April 2026 it received $30,000 of collaboration funding from ABB's Startup Challenge. No later round has been announced.

Milestones

• 2017 to 2023: SESAME developed at MIT, first in MATLAB and then in Python.
• 2023: SESAME IP licensed from MIT and the company founded.
• June 2024: seed round and commercial platform launch.
• May 2025: SOC 2 Type 2 audit completed.
• July 2025: Sesame One launched for energy companies, utilities and infrastructure investors.
• April 2026: Meridian wins ABB's Startup Challenge.
• September 2026: PETRONAS engagement announced.

The team page lists eleven people, and LinkedIn company data shows nine employees. The 2024 seed release placed the company in Boston; its current address is One Broadway in Cambridge.