Gold Standard Unveils Comprehensive Guide for Effective Beyond Value Chain Mitigation

Gold Standard has launched step-by-step guidance to support companies to take responsibility for their greenhouse gas emissions while reducing their climate impact. The approach outlined has the potential to unlock over $20 billion funding from the world’s top 250 companies alone.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – 18/03/2024 – Gold Standard, in partnership with Milkywire and Murmur, has released a step-by-step guide to implementing Beyond Value Chain Mitigation. This initiative aligns with the recent insights shared by the Science Based Target’s Initiative (SBTi) in their reports released on 28 February, aimed at accelerating the adoption of the approach. 

Beyond Value Chain Mitigation is a way for companies to take responsibility for their unabated greenhouse gas emissions while reducing their climate impact in line with science. By taking this approach companies can stay ahead of regulation such as the EU’s proposed law on green claims, get the credit they deserve for their actions, and ensure their climate related claims can withstand scrutiny.

The approach could deliver a boost to climate funding. An additional $23bn would be raised for climate initiatives if the top 250 companies in the world followed the approach to setting a carbon fee outlined in the report, while keeping their expenses under 1% of profits and below $200 per tonne1.

The new guidance builds on SBTI’s recent reports supporting the adoption of Beyond Value Chain Mitigation to detail a clear, step-by-step approach, supplemented by summaries of to-do lists, key choices and expected outputs at each stage.

Gold Standard will be holding a webinar to launch this guidance at 14:00 GMT/15:00 CET on 27 March 2024. If you would like to attend this event, please sign up here.

To further support companies to deliver a high quality Beyond Value Chain Mitigation action plan, Gold Standard is inviting expressions of interest in joining an Exploratory Group on Beyond Value Chain Mitigation. The group will build understanding of key elements of the guidance, create an environment for peer-to-peer learning, and provide feedback based on practical experience. Companies exploring the application of a Beyond Value Chain Mitigation strategy as well as representatives from civil society, advisory and consultancy can find out more here.

Commenting on the publication

Margaret Kim, Gold Standard CEO, said:

“This step-by-step guide demystifies the process for businesses striving to develop a Beyond Value Chain Mitigation Strategy. It provides clear instructions for each of the four steps required: emissions accounting; setting an internal carbon fee; investing in impactful initiatives; and making credible claims about your actions.”

Lene Petersen, Senior Manager Climate and Business at WWF Switzerland, said:

“WWF welcomes emerging guidance on BVCM. Seeing Gold Standard and partners promoting the introduction of carbon costs for climate action beyond the value chain is a much-needed signal for companies  to develop stronger practices. We hope to see  the funds going to durable interventions with benefits for people, nature, and climate.”

Nina Siemiatkowski, founder and CEO Milkywire said:

"We created the Climate Transformation Fund to be a leading option for companies wanting to focus on global net zero rather than on short-term claims, supporting projects with the largest needs, and the highest impact. This guide helps scale the idea, it creates a framework for third-party validation for funds like ours and enables others to follow the approach."

Will Hutton, Trustee, Murmur said:

“Through Murmur's touchpoints in the music and visual arts industries, we hope to demonstrate that companies of all sizes can achieve holistic approaches to mitigating the climate crisis and inspire more widespread adoption of Beyond Value Chain Mitigation thinking.”

Ian Stanton, Head of Sustainability at Beggars Group said:

“Beggars Group is committed to transitioning to a low carbon way of working as part of the UN Race to Zero Initiative, and crucial to this is investing in transformative action within our shared supply chains and beyond, funded by our internal carbon price. This guidance will be invaluable in enabling us to do just this, providing an impactful framework to navigate projects beyond our value chain that don’t simply rely on purchasing carbon credits.”

Alexander Farsan, Head of Climate and Environment at Klarna said:

"It's great to see Milkywire and Gold Standard's new guidance build on the SBTi Beyond Value Chain Mitigation guidance by tackling the critical next step for corporate decision makers: what climate action should you be funding?"

1 From https://carbongap.org/who-can-pay-for-carbon-removal/