Johan Falk, CEO and co-founder of the Exponential Roadmap Initiative, participated in the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Ambition Summit on 20 September, in recognition of his and the initiative’s commitment to solving the climate crisis.

Transition Plans in focus

”Show me your transition plans,” the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said earlier this year, calling on leaders from countries, companies as well as cities and regions to present credible plans to accelerate the decarbonization of the economy.

At his Climate Ambition Summit, Guterres wanted to showcase the ”first movers and doers” in order to incentivize others to follow suit in implementing ambitious climate action. Guterres said:

“If these first-doers and first-movers can do it, everybody can do it.”

Exponential Roadmap Initiative team supported members’ development of transition plans

The Exponential Roadmap initiative team supported more than ten companies in developing and submitting transition plans to the Secretary General’s Climate Action Team. These transition plans followed a UN-produced checklist implementing the recommendations of the Secretary General’s High-Level Expert Group for net zero commitments of non-state entities (HLEG).

CEO Johan Falk said:

”Developing a credible transition plan aligned with the HLEG-recommendations is not a straightforward task for companies. It requires producing new text covering points that are not addressed in existing climate and sustainability reports. It also requires increased transparency about planned climate actions, particularly regarding scale, definitions and standards in using key terms.”

Alongside Mads Nipper, CEO of Exponential Roadmap Initiative member Orsted, Johan Falk attended the Summit’s opening session as well as a thematic session on net zero credibility.

The session showcased businesses, financial institutions, governments, civil society and standard setters who, in their support of the implementation of the High-Level Expert Group’s “Integrity Matters” report, commissioned by the Secretary-General, laid out basic and critical components of transition plans:

• accountability through third party verification;
• demonstrated transparent near-term target years for fossil fuel phase-out, including no new licensing, and investment decisions to scale up renewable energy;
• no use of offsets to decarbonize emissions;
• and underscoring the need of annual reporting as a measure to strengthen accountability.

Businesses and financial institutions used the opportunity to call on governments for clear direction of travel in the form of consistent regulation and mandatory requirements, including on interim targets.

The session concluded on the agreement that more needs to be done by governments, financial authorities and regulators to secure the scientific credibility of transition plans.

For our part, Exponential Roadmap Initiative continues to work with its members on developing credible net zero transition plans. Johan Falk said:

Developing and implementing credible transition plans means that companies transform their business models to be fit for a net zero world with all its constraints on energy, materials and land use. For most companies, such a transition is actually a transformation.

 

Our 1.5° Business Playbook is a key resource guiding companies as they embark on this transformation.