[1][2][3][4][5] Headquartered in the UK,[6] the organisation was launched in 2008 by Bryony Worthington.

Ember was originally founded in 2008 as Sandbag, focussing on the European Union's Emission Trading Scheme, allowing its members to campaign to reduce the number of permits in circulation and to purchase permits and cancel them.

Sandbag was re-branded as Ember in 2020[7] with a focus on the global power sector, while a separate Brussels-based organisation was established to continue work on the ETS.

[8] Ember currently produces research on global electricity trends[9][10][11][12] and coal mine methane emissions,[13][14][15] including research on the EU,[16][17][18][19] India,[20][21][22][23][24] Indonesia,[25][26][27][28] Australia[29][30] and Türkiye.

[32] It also provides 16 open data tools which track regional and global electricity transitions and coal mine methane emissions standards.