Last week saw both record-breaking temperatures and this year’s London Climate Action Week arrive on my doorstep.
For a few days, the virtual became real as I met, in person, the people I usually only email, and the extreme weather that climate scientists have forecast for decades arrived in force. That same shift, from abstract to reality, ran through the events themselves: I heard fewer intangible promises and more calls for genuine action.
The call to action
The conversations were positive, energising, and focused on action. “How do we implement, and fast?” was the question that came up again and again. This pragmatic approach to the climate emergency was embodied by the SBTi’s Ambition to Action Launch Event, which explored how companies can use the Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0 to deliver impactful change.
“Action” is always the premise of Europe’s largest independent climate event, but it felt different this year. Action was no longer being called for in the abstract; it was being discussed in business terms, less the language of duty, more the language of finance, resilience and value creation.
Who carries the risk? Who gets to make the claim? Who holds the cost? These were the live questions, and that is a positive sign, because these are the conversations you have once you have already decided to act.
Practical pathways
This is the part I think about most, because it is my patch. Companies that are ready to act need credible, practical ways to do it.
That’s what Gold Standard is providing: the resources organisations need to accelerate implementation, cut emissions within and outside their value chains, and make credible claims about their climate leadership.
We published the latest edition of our Climate Responsibility Framework just before London Climate Action Week to help companies set a climate strategy that stays credible as the science and the expectations keep moving. We also published a new report, Ongoing Emissions – Taking Responsibility, on what a company does about the emissions it cannot yet eliminate - a question more companies are now being asked.
A collective effort
Gold Standard also hosted six roundtables in a single day, followed by an evening networking event, bringing together stakeholders from across the value chain. Their concerns varied. Investors weighed what our updated forestry methodology means for them. Sustainability leads worked through what comes after the target. Developers and market experts explored where the market is heading. But everyone shared the same drive to accelerate and scale genuine change.
Many discussions revolved around Paris Agreement alignment, a key delivery for Gold Standard this year. Conversations have progressed from questioning the motives of the alignment to a general recognition that this is fundamental to the future of carbon markets. There was a clear understanding of why a unified framework is so important, and questions focused on how to make it as practical as possible for implementation.
People were willing to challenge us, learn from each other and exchange frank views, which made the day worth running.
Thank you to the colleagues who built and ran the sessions, and to everyone who gave us their time. We will do it again next year, and we are building more of this into how we work because the hard problems here - ongoing emissions, credible nature action, a market fit for what comes next - get solved faster when the people facing them work on them together. That’s the room we want to keep convening.
Next steps
Whatever companies decide to do, it only counts if it can be trusted. That’s why we keep investing in our methodologies, our alignment with the Paris Agreement, and the digital infrastructure that supports our system and the claims it makes possible. This work has to stay credible and remain within reach of the projects that need finance most. Integrity, access and scale, moving together. None of it is finished. But it felt closer this week than ever before
I came home with a longer to-do list than I started with, and more confidence that we can work through it. Now, to do the work.