Press Release
February 16, 2023
Contact: Alec Gerlach, gerlacha@c2es.org
The Advanced and Indirect Mitigation Platform (AIM) will serve as a hub for removing barriers to ‘value chain’ mitigation and coordinating collective mitigation action in sectors that require extensive investment or technological change to reduce climate impact. To jump start this work, AIM will organize expert stakeholders to develop guidance on how companies can measure and take credit for emission reductions in their value chain – a critical missing piece in the climate landscape today. This work can unlock billions in new private sector climate funding and propel the most challenging sectors towards decarbonization.
SCOTSDALE, ARIZONA – The Advanced and Indirect Mitigation Platform (The AIM Platform) will serve as a hub for removing barriers to ‘value chain’ mitigation and coordinating collective mitigation action in sectors that require extensive investment or technological change to reduce climate impact. Through its inaugural initiative, The AIM Platform will bring together experts from civil society and practitioners from the private sector to develop credible approaches for accounting, reporting and claiming the results of efforts that reduce emissions within a company’s value chain. Established by The Gold Standard, Neoteric Energy and Climate, and the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), it was formally launched at GreenBiz 23 in Scottsdale, Arizona on February 16, 2023. The AIM Platform will be working closely with the Science Based Targets initiative and GHG Protocol, with the goal that its outputs will inform and complement future updates to their respective guidance.
In recent years, thousands of companies have set science-based or net-zero targets in support of the Paris Agreement. Most of those targets include ambitious commitments to tackle indirect – or ‘value chain’ – emissions. As companies work toward decarbonizing the suppliers and customers that make up their value chain, however, they quickly encounter significant barriers. Current GHG accounting and target-setting guidance lacks methods by which companies can credibly calculate and claim reductions from most value chain decarbonization efforts. For example:
In all of these examples, the companies currently have no way to credibly represent the resulting emission reductions in their scope 3 GHG inventories or count them toward their scope 3 targets. This gap in guidance robs companies of the justification they need to scale these significant, necessary investments.
It is possible to unlock solutions to these challenges. By building a robust and transparent accounting, claiming and reporting framework that enables companies to take credit for indirect emissions reductions achieved in the sectors or activities associated with their supply chain, the AIM Platform will pave the way for vastly increased contributions to critical climate solutions.
Over a dozen experts have accepted invitations to sit on the Governing Committee for AIM’s value chain guidance development initiative, and today the organizers are issuing an open call to experts from civil society, standard-setting bodies and the private sector to apply to participate in sectoral and cross-cutting working groups. Details can be found on the partnership’s website: www.aimplatform.org. For those interested in finding out more, a webinar will be held on Thursday March 9th at 11am-12pm EST.
“By convincing companies to estimate their emissions and set ambitious climate commitments, the work of SBTi and the GHG Protocol has been, and will continue to be, critical to progress in corporate sustainability strategies. Our aim is to work with them and build on that success by providing companies the tools they need to achieve those commitments and unlock a new wave of private sector finance,” said Margaret Kim, CEO of Gold Standard.
“AIM has the potential to be a game-changer in how companies finance large-scale emissions reductions in their value chains. The guidance we are developing will benefit companies across the economy, but especially those in sectors where abatement requires significant, concentrated capital investment in low-carbon technologies. By building a robust and transparent accounting, claiming and reporting framework, AIM will give companies a powerful new tool to finance interventions that reduce emissions anywhere in their value chain – unlocking private capital to accelerate and scale corporate investment in climate solutions,” said Nat Keohane, President, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
“The mission of the AIM Platform isn’t to give companies a practical way to achieve their climate targets – though it will. The mission is to direct their funding so it underpins the transition of the highest emitting sectors of the global economy,” said Kim Carnahan, CEO, Neoteric Energy and Climate.
About Gold Standard
Gold Standard (www.goldstandard.org, @goldstandard) was established in 2003 by WWF and other international NGOs as a best practice standard to help the world #GrowToZero. All Gold Standard-certified projects and programmes accelerate progress toward the Net-Zero ambition of the Paris Climate Agreement while catalyzing impact toward the broader Sustainable Development Goals. Its standard, Gold Standard for the Global Goals, allows climate and development initiatives to quantify, certify, and maximise their impacts toward climate security and sustainable development. Certification against the standard provides the confidence that these results are measured and verified, enabling credible impact reporting. ISEAL Code Compliant and backed by a broad NGO Supporter Network, Gold Standard has 1900+ projects underway in over 90 countries, creating billions of dollars of shared value from climate and development action worldwide.
About the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) (www.c2es.org, @C2ES_org) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan climate research organization working to secure a safe and stable climate by accelerating the global transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and a thriving, just and resilient economy. Founded in 1998 as the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, C2ES has a longstanding reputation as an objective and authoritative voice on climate policy and a respected convener of policymakers, business executives and other stakeholders. C2ES has trusted relationships across key sectors of the economy due to its Business Environment Leadership Council (BELC), comprising over 40 mostly Fortune 500 multinational companies committed to action in support of the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
About Neoteric Energy and Climate
Neoteric Energy and Climate is a specialized climate and energy advisory firm, providing a platform for decarbonization partnerships among public, private sector and non-profit organizations. Neoteric’s Founder and CEO Kim Carnahan is a former U.S. Chief Negotiator for Climate Change and U.S. Focal Point to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). She managed the teams that negotiated the Paris Agreement and ICAO’s CORSIA. As Senior Director for Alternative Fuels at ENGIE Impact, Kim advised global companies in their efforts to address their hardest-to-abate emissions. She spearheaded the launch of the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA) in 2021 with Environmental Defense Fund and Rocky Mountain Institute. Neoteric continues to manage SABA, which is developing the accounting guidance, claiming infrastructure and procurement support aviation customers need in order to credibly and transparently address their indirect aviation emissions.