Dunstan Allison-Hope’s Post

Today, the AIM Platform released the draft AIM Platform Criteria for stakeholder input. These criteria have been written with a focus on guiding organizations that seek to address emissions in their value chain through "value chain interventions". They focus on clarifying the AIM Platform perspective on what needs to be in place to determine that an intervention can be considered as sufficiently associated with an organization’s value chain as well as what other conditions must be present to ensure sound GHG accounting, environmental integrity, and appropriate claiming of impacts towards a climate target.    Each of these criteria requires significant further elaboration in order to be assurable. The next output from the AIM Platform will be the AIM Platform Requirements for Assurance, which will provide significantly more detail on how an organization would prove - and an auditor would check for - alignment with the criteria.   As this is a draft for stakeholder comment, it does not yet reflect consensus among the AIM Platform Governing Committee. Indeed, throughout this draft, the AIM Platform Governing Committee has listed particular questions on which it seeks input, in order to inform its further deliberation and eventual adoption of the Criteria.   All stakeholders - NGOs, companies, standard setting bodies, etc. - are invited to review the Criteria and provide both general feedback and feedback on the specific highlighted questions by end of day Friday June 21st. Feedback can be submitted by email to [email protected] or using this form: https://lnkd.in/e6MwBMUH.

Today, the AIM Platform released the draft AIM Platform Criteria for stakeholder input. These criteria have been written with a focus on guiding organizations that seek to address emissions in their value chain through "value chain interventions". They focus on clarifying the AIM Platform perspective on what needs to be in place to determine that an intervention can be considered as sufficiently associated with an organization’s value chain as well as what other conditions must be present to ensure sound GHG accounting, environmental integrity, and appropriate claiming of impacts towards a climate target.    Each of these criteria requires significant further elaboration in order to be assurable. The next output from the AIM Platform will be the AIM Platform Requirements for Assurance, which will provide significantly more detail on how an organization would prove - and an auditor would check for - alignment with the criteria.   As this is a draft for stakeholder comment, it does not yet reflect consensus among the AIM Platform Governing Committee. Indeed, throughout this draft, the AIM Platform Governing Committee has listed particular questions on which it seeks input, in order to inform its further deliberation and eventual adoption of the Criteria.   All stakeholders - NGOs, companies, standard setting bodies, etc. - are invited to review the Criteria and provide both general feedback and feedback on the specific highlighted questions by end of day Friday June 21st. Feedback can be submitted by email to [email protected] or using this form: https://lnkd.in/e6MwBMUH.

⁉ What on earth are Science Based Targets initiative (#SBTi) doing ⁉ Here's my short summary... 📰 HEADLINE 📰 Absolutely nothing has changed, yet. ❓ WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED ❓ On Tuesday 9th April, SBTi's Board of Trustees unilaterally announced that they were 'intending' to allow "Environmental Attribute Certificates" (essentially carbon offsets / credits) to be more widely used as part of net zero targets to reduce Scope 3 (indirect value chain) emissions. They were always clear that this was not an immediate change, but an intended direction that would be subject to consultation, with the aim to publish a first draft of proposed guidance in July (ie. still not implemented even then). We have ZERO specifics on what they are actually proposing. ☢ SBTi EMPLOYEES PUSHBACK ☢ On Wednesday 10th April (the next day), an open letter signed by the majority of SBTi staff made it incredibly clear that there had been no internal consultation or agreement on the Board of Trustees Statement. The counter-statement said that their Board of Trustees had undermined and ignored SBTi's agreed Standard Operating Procedures and governance processes, and fundamentally did not have the sole decision-making authority to make such a statement, and indeed that there was no evidence that it would be "science-based" to use offsets for scope 3 emissions. 🚣♂️ RAPID ROWBACK 🚣♂️ By Friday 12th April, SBTi issued an official clarification confirming that there had been no change to SBTi standards and that they would go through the proper process and consultation to produce a first draft proposal by July. 🕵♂️ WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? 🕵♂️ It's honestly hard to say, but broadly I see three possibilities: 1) Pushback succeeds - if enough pressure builds from SBTi staff and other stakeholders, the idea of offsetting scope 3 could be entirely ruled out. 2) Limited Weakening - they decide to allow scope 3 offsetting, but with very tight rules and guardrails (e.g. it can only cover x% of scope 3 emissions) 3) Open Season for Offsetting - I think this is extremely unlikely, but in principle they could open the door to offsetting being used fairly indiscriminately for scope 3 emissions mitigation. 💥 WHAT COULD CONSEQUENCES BE? 💥 Honestly, the biggest consequence is that the confusion has already rattled everyone and undermined confidence in SBTi. If a change does eventually get made, it would be a significant shift from the current standard, which says offsets can only be used against unavoidable 'residual' emissions in a net zero strategy, which is limited to <10% of a company's baseline carbon footprint (with Scope 3 typically representing 75%-99% of a company carbon footprint). Supporters say scope 3 emissions are REALLY hard and that corporates need more tools to tackle them. Detractors say this would reduce corporate motivation to take direct action and reduce emissions. What do you think? I'll do my best to answer additional questions...

⁉ What on earth are Science Based Targets initiative (#SBTi) doing ⁉ Here's my short summary... 📰 HEADLINE 📰 Absolutely nothing has changed, yet. ❓ WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED ❓ On Tuesday 9th April, SBTi's Board of Trustees unilaterally announced that they were 'intending' to allow "Environmental Attribute Certificates" (essentially carbon offsets / credits) to be more widely used as part of net zero targets to reduce Scope 3 (indirect value chain) emissions. They were always clear that this was not an immediate change, but an intended direction that would be subject to consultation, with the aim to publish a first draft of proposed guidance in July (ie. still not implemented even then). We have ZERO specifics on what they are actually proposing. ☢ SBTi EMPLOYEES PUSHBACK ☢ On Wednesday 10th April (the next day), an open letter signed by the majority of SBTi staff made it incredibly clear that there had been no internal consultation or agreement on the Board of Trustees Statement. The counter-statement said that their Board of Trustees had undermined and ignored SBTi's agreed Standard Operating Procedures and governance processes, and fundamentally did not have the sole decision-making authority to make such a statement, and indeed that there was no evidence that it would be "science-based" to use offsets for scope 3 emissions. 🚣♂️ RAPID ROWBACK 🚣♂️ By Friday 12th April, SBTi issued an official clarification confirming that there had been no change to SBTi standards and that they would go through the proper process and consultation to produce a first draft proposal by July. 🕵♂️ WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? 🕵♂️ It's honestly hard to say, but broadly I see three possibilities: 1) Pushback succeeds - if enough pressure builds from SBTi staff and other stakeholders, the idea of offsetting scope 3 could be entirely ruled out. 2) Limited Weakening - they decide to allow scope 3 offsetting, but with very tight rules and guardrails (e.g. it can only cover x% of scope 3 emissions) 3) Open Season for Offsetting - I think this is extremely unlikely, but in principle they could open the door to offsetting being used fairly indiscriminately for scope 3 emissions mitigation. 💥 WHAT COULD CONSEQUENCES BE? 💥 Honestly, the biggest consequence is that the confusion has already rattled everyone and undermined confidence in SBTi. If a change does eventually get made, it would be a significant shift from the current standard, which says offsets can only be used against unavoidable 'residual' emissions in a net zero strategy, which is limited to <10% of a company's baseline carbon footprint (with Scope 3 typically representing 75%-99% of a company carbon footprint). Supporters say scope 3 emissions are REALLY hard and that corporates need more tools to tackle them. Detractors say this would reduce corporate motivation to take direct action and reduce emissions. What do you think? I'll do my best to answer additional questions...