2024 brought many exciting opportunities for the Green Strategies team to impact and advance progress for a better climate future. Our team worked with clients across diverse sectors to solve complex business sustainability problems. As we look ahead to 2025, we are excited to continue doing what we do best – helping our clients do good and do well by bringing environmental impact and solutions to the marketplace.
Keep reading to see some of our highlights from this past year.
Developing an Expansive Net Zero Framework
Companies and standards setters are grappling with the issue of how to account for and incentivize Net Zero, both at the company and global level. Key questions include: How can we fund crucial nature-based solutions like conservation and ecosystem remediation? What should a company do if it can’t reduce all emissions in its value chain? Should companies take a larger role in spurring systems change, and how can they get credit for this if it doesn’t fall within their emissions inventory?
The conversation around Net Zero is shifting to climate transition plans and actions, in addition to accounting for emissions in an inventory. We are working with a group of climate leaders to propose solutions to these problems, and spur meaningful action to eliminate emissions through a more expansive Net Zero framework.
The concept of ‘Net Zero’ is not a marketing term. It is derived from the reality that we need to eliminate emissions to stabilize our climate, and we need to leverage all decarbonization opportunities as soon as we can by moving beyond the narrow scope of corporate boundaries as we currently think of them. In 2025, we expect versions of a more expansive approach to Net Zero, including policy advocacy, enabling decarbonization technologies, and an evolution in company purpose to move more towards the forefront.
Going ‘Beyond Value Chain Mitigation’ to Reduce Emissions
With the release of SBTi’s reports on beyond value chain mitigation (BVCM), our clients have started to ask how to pursue BVCM by supporting nature-based solutions with carbon credits. While it is unclear if standard-setters like SBTi will formally allow carbon credits to ‘count’ towards science-based targets, there is increasingly clear recognition that companies should do what they can to mitigate ongoing emissions on their way to net zero – and protect nature, with its biodiversity and carbon sequestration benefits at the same time. As noted by the IPCC in 2022, natural climate solutions like ecosystem protection and restoration, are crucial cost-effective approaches to limiting warming that can be implemented now.
We are helping our clients develop high-integrity carbon credit strategies to help reduce global emissions while simultaneously reducing their own share of those emissions. As part of this best practice strategy, our clients are focused on carbon credits that will deliver co-benefits like biodiversity, and limit planet-warming emissions starting this decade.
In to these nature-based credits, we have counseled our clients on emissions avoidance projects that are aligned with their businesses, including actions such as refrigerant destruction and methane emissions avoidance. Avoiding these climate super-pollutants is another solution that can be implemented now and reduce the chance of overshooting mid-century emissions targets and stabilize the climate. For our clients, funding the destruction of these emissions demonstrates stewardship beyond their role in climate change, while simultaneously working to stop the emissions in the first place.
We anticipate that beyond value chain mitigation will become more popular as we recognize the value of pulling all levers to reduce emissions as soon as possible.
Advancing Company-wide Sustainability Strategies to include Packaging, Water, Waste, and More
This year, we worked with a mid-sized, private company develop its first companywide strategy on sustainability. Working closely with a greenhouse gas accountant, we gave expert insights and counsel as they calculated their first greenhouse gas inventory and began efforts to increase efficiency to reduce their inventory numbers. Moving beyond greenhouse gases, this client has made great strides to reduce the amount of plastic in its packaging, set a business-wide policy for water efficiency in buildings, and is working to divert waste from landfill in its headquarters and manufacturing facilities. These efforts also included starting a composting program and instating reusable containers at its cafeteria.
We had a ton of fun working on a diverse range of sustainability projects with this client and look forward to continued progress in the new year.
Promoting Conservation and Clean Energy on Public Lands
Despite both offering significant climate and environmental benefits, sometimes conservation and clean energy end up at odds with one another. This year, the Green Strategies team worked closely with a consortium of conservation groups and clean energy companies to find agreement in the need to balance essential renewable energy projects for a climate-safe future with a responsibility to protect some of our most ecologically sensitive and important lands across the US.
In May, the Bureau of Land Management published its Conservation and Landscape Health Rule (aka the Public Lands Rule) which advances the agency’s mission to protect public lands. The rule will ultimately help conserve important wildlife habitat and intact landscapes, maintain unique cultural resources on public lands, and improve the health and resilience of lands impacted by a changing climate, all while expanding outdoor access and recreation alongside thoughtful and responsible development.
Expanding Clean Energy Procurement
This year, the Green Strategies team worked to advance clean energy procurement from both the buyer and the developer sides. In one case, we helped a major manufacturer and buyer of renewable electricity craft a strategy to modernize its procurement approach in response to growing stakeholder interest in maximizing the climate and social impacts of renewable buying as well as navigating anticipated changes to Scope 2 accounting rules.
We also worked closely with solar developers who were looking to better understand the clean energy procurement landscape from the buyer perspective, and helped develop practical strategies for honing their approach in order to successfully launch new clean energy projects and products for buyers of clean electricity.
See something that sparks your interest? Get in touch with the team to see how we can work together.
