EDINBURGH-based Carbon Masters, which advises clients on measuring and managing emissions, predicts it will achieve total international sales of £3.5 million over a five-year period as it undertakes work in South America and India and eyes a move into the US.

The carbon management consultancy, which was spun out of the University of Edinburgh in 2009, said it had tracked emissions for US-based pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer at a facility in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito.

The Scottish company, run by chief executive officer Kevin Houston, said it had also completed an assessment for steel manufacturer Adelca in Ecuador at the end of last year, measuring the carbon footprint of this company's plant outside Quito. This Adelca plant makes steel billets from recycled scrap using an electric arc furnace, re-heats billets to make steel rods, and manufactures steel nails, fencing and barbed wire.

Carbon Masters has opened a branch in the Indian city of Bangalore to explore opportunities in the Indian market.

It said it had secured an engagement recently with telecoms infrastructure provider American Tower Corporation to map the carbon footprint of its telecom towers.

Carbon Masters added that India boasted the second-largest telecoms sector in the world with 900 million subscribers.

It noted that this rapid expansion has created 400,000 telecom towers, powered by a mixture of electricity, batteries and diesel, in rural and remote areas where connection to the grid was partial or absent, and that these produced 16 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

Carbon Masters said it was engaged in several energy efficiency projects in India, including one in a large office building in the centre of Bangalore at which it was co-ordinating installation of solar roof panels, thus reducing electricity consumption and carbon emissions.

The firm said it was seeking to gain a US presence, following market research which had identified opportunities, particularly in the grocery retail sector. A spokesman for Carbon Masters, which employs five people, said the company hoped to open an office in the US this year.

Mr Houston, who held executive posts at information technology group IBM and household products company Procter & Gamble, said UK expertise in carbon reduction strategies was highly sought-after in overseas markets. He added that, while there was no legislation requiring companies to measure or report their carbon emissions in Ecuador, leading businesses and public sector organisations were seeing the benefits of assessing their carbon footprint and taking steps to reduce it.

Som Narayan, a co-director of Carbon Masters who runs the office in Bangalore, said: "In India, leading organisations are seeing the benefits of looking at their energy consumption and exploring ways to reduce it or to move to lower carbon sources of energy with renewables.

"Given that climate change is a worldwide problem, our vision is to build a global practice so that we can assist organisations around the world to measure, manage, reduce and report their carbon emissions."