Corporate Climate Responsibility

The guide establishes a methodology for assessing corporate climate responsibility across four key areas: emissions tracking and disclosure, target setting, emission reduction measures, and responsibility for unabated and residual emissions. It emphasizes alignment with 1.5°C-compatible pathways, the necessity of covering all emission scopes (including Scope 3), and the distinction between genuine emission reductions and misleading offsetting or 'insetting' claims. The document provides specific benchmarks for various industrial sectors and detailed criteria for high-integrity renewable electricity procurement and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategies.

• High-integrity emissions disclosure requires annual reporting of all direct (Scope 1), indirect energy-use (Scope 2), and upstream/downstream indirect emissions (Scope 3), broken down by specific emission sources with historical data back to the target base year.
• For Scope 2 emissions, companies should report both location-based and market-based estimates and use the higher of the two values for their total emissions footprint to incentivize both energy efficiency and renewable procurement.
• Credible short- and medium-term emission reduction targets must be set at maximum five-year intervals and align with 1.5°C-compatible benchmarks for the specific sector.
• Net-zero targets are considered misleading if they do not include deep emission reduction commitments independent of offsetting; for most sectors, this requires a commitment to reductions of at least 90% below 2019 levels.
• Renewable electricity procurement is most effective when using high-quality constructs like on-site generation with storage or Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), whereas standalone Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) are viewed as unsuitable for reducing electricity-related emissions due to low likelihood of additional capacity.
• The use of bioenergy is discouraged unless it is a temporary solution in sectors with limited electrification options, as it can cause negative sustainability impacts on food security, biodiversity, and water resources.
• Climate contributions (Beyond Value Chain Mitigation) are defined as financial support for climate action outside a company's value chain without claiming to neutralise its own emissions; a responsible internal carbon price for such contributions is recommended at USD 100-250 per tonne.
• Current offsetting claims are fundamentally flawed due to the lack of corresponding adjustments to prevent double counting and the difficulty of proving additionality in the post-Paris Agreement era.
• Carbon dioxide removals (CDR) should only be used to neutralise 'residual emissions'—those from sources where technical mitigation potential is very limited—and must ensure permanence over centuries to millenniums.
• The concept of 'insetting' and 'Climate Positive' claims are viewed as non-credible or misleading, as they often result in double counting or use avoided emissions that are not additional.

APA

Day, T., Hans, F., Mooldijk, S., Smit, S., Woollands, S., de Grandpré, J., Salsabila, N., Fraser, E., Kuramochi, T., & Warnecke, C. (2024). Corporate Climate Responsibility. Carbon Market Watch. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CCRM_Methodology_v4.pdf

Chicago

Day, Thomas, Frederic Hans, Silke Mooldijk, Sybrig Smit, Santiago Woollands, Juliette de Grandpré, Nabila Salsabila, et al. Corporate Climate Responsibility. Carbon Market Watch, 2024. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CCRM_Methodology_v4.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{day2024corporate, author = {Day, Thomas and Hans, Frederic and Mooldijk, Silke and Smit, Sybrig and Woollands, Santiago and de Grandpré, Juliette and Salsabila, Nabila and Fraser, Eve and Kuramochi, Takeshi and Warnecke, Carsten}, title = {{Corporate Climate Responsibility}}, institution = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2024}, month = apr, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CCRM_Methodology_v4.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }