Climate solutions
Principles for defining and qualifying climate solutions and climate solutions companies
About this paper
Climate solutions that replace high-emission activities with low- or zero-emission alternatives are essential for decarbonising our economies quickly and at the scale required. Many of the climate solutions we need are proven and exist today, but have not yet been scaled sufficiently.
Scaling climate solutions exponentially is a precondition to achieving a 1.5°C world, yet a climate solutions perspective has largely been missing from the corporate climate standards and policy outlook. This paper authored by Exponential Roadmap Initiative and Oxford Net Zero, therefore, puts forward principles for defining climate solutions as an offering to the corporate climate action governance, accountability and reporting landscape with the intention to provide principles simple enough to be applied rapidly and at scale, with reasonable use of resources, and to do so with enough precision and ambition to avoid greenwashing.
Criteria for qualifying climate solutions
A climate solution is a product or service that meets a need in society, contributes to the reduction of GHG emissions and has significantly lower emissions than business-as-usual options. Production and consumption of climate solutions is compatible with the global 1.5°C ambition, and will accelerate the transition towards a net zero carbon economy.
This definition above is underpinned by proposed criteria for the qualification of products and services as climate solutions. To qualify as a climate solution, a product or service must fulfil one or more of three criteria, as well as underlying and safeguard requirements.
Criteria for qualifying a company as a climate solutions company
The criteria detailed in the paper are required for a company to qualify as a climate solutions company. Note they are for application to companies that supply climate solutions directly to markets:
- >90% of the company’s19 revenue comes from sales of climate solutions.
- The company must have a) public interim and net zero climate targets, b) a published transition plan and
c) annual reporting on progress. - The company must work more broadly to transform its sector.Qualification of a company against the above criteria would be for a fixed period of time. A new assessment will be required periodically to reflect changes over time in the quantifications and thresholds underlying the criteria for climate solutions.
Situating this work on the conveyor belt
The authors see this paper as important new thinking that would move along the so-called conveyor belt of the corporate climate accountability and governance system, feeding into experimental use by voluntary initiatives and efforts by orchestration campaigns, such as the Race to Zero, to consolidate best practice. But the criteria for qualifying climate solutions and climate solutions companies at this stage do not provide sufficient bases for making environmental claims.
Consultation: share your insights on how climate solutions can be defined
Exponential Roadmap Initiative and Oxford Net Zero are keen to ensure that our work takes account of existing definitions, guidelines and taxonomies, and other ongoing work to define “green” products, services, companies and investments.
Our consultation on climate solution taxonomies closed on 31 March 2024 but questions and feedback are still welcome.
More resources
- Solutions House 2023 event: The Race to the Top: Scaling Climate Solutions Globally
- A climate solutions assessment framework for professional services providers
- Comment: The good news from the IPCC report
- Live cuts from our broadcasts on the We Don’t Have Time COP28 Climate Hub including Johan Falk, Kaya Axelsson of Oxford Net Zero, Otto Gernandt of H2 Green Steel and Massamba Thioye of the UNFCCC Secretariat 👇
