This week we’re celebrating the 9th anniversary of the original release of GRITS 1.0. A lot has changed in the past nine years! We launched GRITS from our office in downtown Boston and over the years have added thousands of new users and welcomed hundreds of new institutions on board. We’re always seeking feedback from our users and partners and constantly building new and expanded functionality into GRITS. In fact, we estimate that on our 9th anniversary GRITS has about 9x the number of capabilities that it had in the original version in 2014.
Throughout this time, we have also maintained nearly all of our original GRITS team members, who continue to design new features and lead the platform’s growth into new countries and new sectors. Some of the major features we’ve added to GRITS include:
- Library Digest emails with new projects from other users
- Social cost of carbon frameworks that estimate additional financial benefits of reducing carbon emissions
- GRITS Goals climate action planning features
- Public Dashboards: embed project-level, portfolio-level, or goal scenario data in websites
- Customizable carbon emissions factors
- GRITS Library (with over 4,000 completed projects to learn from)
- Reports tab that illustrates project data in charts and graphs
As the number of GRITS users has expanded, we have also started to facilitate connections and create a community through our GRITS User Get Together calls. Participants share the bigger picture behind their sustainability projects–the successes, obstacles, and remaining questions. It’s one more way that the platform helps sustainability and facilities professionals learn from one another. We hope to see you on a future call (sign up here to be notified in advance).
A big thank you to all of our users around the world and to our many partner organizations. GRITS wouldn’t be here today, or be the advanced platform it has become, without all of you. We’re excited for the years ahead and to celebrate our 10th anniversary next year when GRITS will have taken another leap forward both in terms of a growing community of users and exciting new features that are in the works!