Gold Standard reposted this
Thoughtful leadership from WWF - smart mechanisms to enact value chain abatement with strictly no conflation with beyond value chain mitigation and offsetting. Three things to deliver integrity: 1 - Companies must take responsibility for 100% of their emissions. Scope 3 targets are currently limited to 67% coverage due to perceived impracticality. With mechanisms to resolve these issues companies must move to 100%. 2 - Value chain mechanisms must focus on impact; no more attribute shuffling or cheap certificates that have little benefit. They must also include for safeguarding, engagement and sustainable development, as Paris and other voluntary mechanisms have recently begun to do. 3 - The voluntary carbon market, as part of Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) must hold the moral high line and be the mechanism holding all of the above to account. This is undermined, along with the reputation of the VCM, where scope 3 targets and the use of unrelated credits are conflated. We wrote on these topics in the weeks leading up to LCAW, you can find our detailed thoughts: https://lnkd.in/e78zn7FK #scope3 #carbonmarkets #corporateresponsibility https://lnkd.in/ezBJ3zDd
Terence Tan
1mo
Owen Hewlett (wearing my CAD Trust hat) just curious would GS/WWF plan to develop any tool / public good for companies to check if a credit is defined as “within the value chain”, given their company’s business? This seems like something which ESG teams (especially in APAC), would need help with to better navigate, as a lot of value chain data in APAC is still quite opaque 🤔
Chief Technical Officer at The Gold Standard Foundation
1moAdding a quick note as it causes some confusion; purchasing unrelated carbon removals (i.e. from outside the value chain) is also BVCM and cannot credibly be used towards value chain targets. Some companies can generate removals from activities within their value chains, these would count, subject to the final approvals of the GHGP land sector and removals guidance. Net zero as a claim is built on the IPCC definition and speaks to 90% value chain abatement (for most companies, some sectoral differences) and then neutralise (offset) the residual emissions with durable removals. Neutralising (offsetting) prior to that will not result in a credible net zero claim, but rather would form part of a BVCM strategy, per my original point 3 above.