Every day and in every way, we should be supporting companies to decarbonising their businesses and holding them to account if they do not. We can do this as consumers, as investors, as technical experts and yes, by providing pragmatic guidelines to achieve net zero.
The pace corporates need to decarbonise must be aligned to the Paris goals, we are after all, all in this together, whether we like it or not. And that pace must recognise sectoral differences that may hinder the ability to decarbonise.
So why are pragmatic net zero guidelines proving so difficult to achieve when we recognise their importance? On the positive side there is broad based consensus on the key steps corporates should take (stated simply as the mitigation hierarchy), but there is broad disagreement on the use of carbon markets to support net zero delivery (as seen by the SBTi release this week and related commentary).
This disagreement is already having a profound impact on people’s lives as investment dwindles off the back of uncertainty. Read the post by Sandeep Roy Choudhury
Recently I led a taskforce in IETA, to try and unpick this quandary. The central question is – can corporates use carbon offsetting as a mitigation tool whilst supporting the mitigation hierarchy?
Yes, is the answer we reached. We captured this work in the IETA Guidelines for the High Integrity use of Credits. Carbon offsetting offers us a flexible mechanism to help corporates meet interim targets on their net zero pathway. If used responsibly, if transparently reported, this is an essential tool. The risk of corporates missing targets without some flexibility is high if you consider the societal transformation that net zero requires.
Carbon markets support societal transition at lowest cost. And this must happen with integrity. As my friend Robbie Louw puts it, integrity has three pillars – environmental, social and economic. At present, we are pursuing the one at the detriment of the others. We need to pursue integrity at a pace that is equitable. Is this not what the Just Transition requires?
https://lnkd.in/d6g_RRdX
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