I once worked as a data analyst in the EM&V industry (Evaluation, Measurement, and Verification). I worked for a small group of consultants and our primary customer would be energy utilities across the United States. You see, an energy company, all things equal, would prefer to sell more energy rather than less. More energy sold == more profit, for the most part - coops and other, smaller scale operations aside.

Now, society has decided that incentivizing growth in energy consumption isn't a winning strategy in the long run. Or, at least, politicians have signed into law various incentive programs to change the business calculus of energy companies, wherein an energy company can get reimbursed for energy efficiency campaigns that it runs and, if total energy consumption is less than a certain rate year over year, the energy company can claim a prize to offset the profit forgone by promoting energy efficiency.

However, it is not so straightforward to account for how much energy _isn't_ being used on account of a specific intervention. Enter here the entire EM&V industry! We would run studies to account for this missing energy, and it was a very thorough business - comparing lists of equipment replaced under industrial efficiency programs, measuring Watt-hours offset, surveying households to figure out how many of them actually installed those complementary LED lightbulbs. Every year we would run through the same process with the same energy companies and then they'd find out how much energy they saved.

At times it felt surreal to be a part of this giant industry competing for a chance to count how much of something wasn't used, but it looks like that industry is only going to grow as carbon caps and offsets become a bigger deal.

I don't think it's a bad thing, just a profoundly weird one. In 50 years I wonder how many people will derive their income from counting things that don't exist :)