“We can halve emissions by 2030.” That’s what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded two years ago.
The Exponential Roadmap had arrived at the same key finding already four years earlier, revealing that scaling 36 solutions would enable halving of emissions by 2030.
If, that is, if the solutions scale.
But as 2030 is coming closer, we’re nowhere near on track to halve emissions.
If the solutions exist, then what can get them to scale?
We think part of the catalyst is a clear and simple consensus framework defining what “climate solutions” actually are.
Exponential Roadmap Initiative, or ERI, is a collaborative climate initiative uniting companies that are innovators, transformers and disruptors to drive exponential transformation and halve emissions by 2030. Together with experts at Oxford Net Zero, ERI has developed a simple, clear and usable framework to identify climate solutions products as well as climate solutions companies.
Meeting the criteria
In order for climate solutions to scale, business leaders, investors and policymakers need to know whether companies’ products and services are climate solutions or not. Initiatives like the Race to Zero 2030 Breakthroughs, Project Drawdown or One Earth all look at the technologies that need to scale.
But our framework goes to the level of the company-specific products and services that are examples of these technologies. We define climate solutions as products or services that meet a need in society, contribute to the reduction of GHG emissions and have significantly lower emissions than business-as-usual options.
The Climate Solutions Framework provides a clear and simple way to evaluate these. It spells out when companies can claim that their products and services are climate solutions. They qualify by delivering their function with significantly lower emissions than current market options.
Green steel, with a climate footprint of under 200 kg of CO2 per ton of steel, compared to about two tons for traditionally manufactured steel, is one example. Plant-based foods like oat milk would be another.
An electric car however would not qualify – unless it was made from recycled materials and shared among users. Only that would lower the greenhouse gas emissions per mile of personal transport radically compared to other options in the market.
Safeguards in ERI’s climate solutions framework require that a climate solution may do no significant harm to biodiversity, ecosystems, water and marine resources; may not create significant pollution; nor contribute to extending the life of fossil-fuel dependent technologies.
The framework also defines what makes a company a climate solutions company – namely one that:
- is making over 90% of its revenue from sales of climate solutions
- has interim and net zero greenhouse gas targets in place that cover its full value chain, as well as annual reporting
- works towards the wider transformation within its sector
Those companies that already today qualify as climate solutions companies should focus on scaling up their solutions in a sustainable way, effectively replacing fossil-fuel based products. One such example is Stegra, previously H2 Green Steel.
All other companies should use the framework to complement their science-aligned emissions reduction targets with targets for transforming product portfolios towards climate solutions. A burger chain for example would create some menu choices that qualify – think plant-based burgers or shakes – and increase the proportion of these choices against in its product portfolio.
Investors – from venture capital firms backing the earliest, fastest-growing climate solutions startups, to later stage private equity firms and public market asset managers – can use the framework to map to their portfolios.
Moving forward
The Venture Climate Alliance, a global group of leading venture capital investors committed to aligning their portfolios with the net zero transition, will be working over the coming months to provide even more clarity on climate solutions to the limited partners who allocate capital to venture capital firms, as well as other stakeholders.
No matter the asset class, sector or industry in question, the task remains both simple and profound; scale up the deployment of climate solutions as quickly as possible, in as many markets as possible. The new definitions being piloted by the Exponential Roadmap Initiative should help.
This framework then is the first step in creating a baseline against which different real-world “solutions”, being delivered by specific companies, can be compared, and the most impactful invested in. A clear framework can motivate investors to fund climate solutions and to compete on this count. Investments in turn reward and motivate companies to develop and scale climate solutions products and services.
Every fraction of a degree of warming makes climate change more catastrophic – for everyone on the planet. Recent estimates see the economic damage as a result from climate change many times greater than previously thought.
Given the urgency and the scope of the threat looming over us and our economies, we need to complement the efforts to reduce emissions with efforts to scale solutions. This framework is an important step towards unlocking speed and scale in fighting climate change.
Johan Falk is CEO and co-founder of Exponential Roadmap Initiative. Claire Wigg is ERI’s Head of Climate Performance Practice. Daniel Firger is co-founder and lead advisor of Venture Climate Alliance.
