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Geneva, 27 April 2023: The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has announced the launch of The Climate Drive, a digital platform designed to accelerate climate action progress along value chains. Developed in close collaboration with over 40 global companies, as well as academic partner Oxford Net Zero (University of Oxford), the platform is now available in beta version, with plans to release its first fully-functioning version by 2024.
The aim of The Climate Drive is to support companies across all sectors to implement their emissions reduction targets, by centralizing and simplifying access to latest knowledge on corporate net-zero and linking it to trusted, actionable and industry-specific decarbonization guidance. If successful, in 2030, at least 50 000 companies could learn, act and collaborate on the platform, covering approximately 30% of global emissions.
In particular, it will address three challenges companies are facing in the implementation of their decarbonization plans:
- Decarbonizing requires mass-upskilling efforts both for inside a company and across its value chain. This challenge can seem overwhelming, especially considering the number of suppliers to activate and train, which is over 10,000 for some businesses.
- The net-zero accountability landscape, even for sustainability experts, is increasingly hard to navigate with over 30 voluntary initiatives and standards globally. Steering this landscape is time-consuming and resource-intensive – when more resources should be dedicated to action.
- There is a lack of implementation, industry-specific and high-quality guidance available at large scale and low to no cost.
To address these challenges, the platform features four main components, three of which are already available in a pilot version:
- A “Net Zero Readiness Check” developed by researchers at Oxford Net Zero and Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, which will serve as a North Star for companies to self-assess the readiness of their organization along the common expectations from the Over 30 Net Zero initiatives and standards and identify key next steps to align with them;
- A “Guidebook” which will detail how to design and execute the net-zero corporate journey;
- An “Action Library,” a collection of decarbonization solutions with implementation guidance;
- A Collaboration Hub, to be developed later, which will host knowledge peer exchanges and events in a safe space.
The platform has been shaped in close collaboration with over 40 companies to test and sharpen the value proposition. Companies including CLP Holdings Limited, Iberdrola, National Grid, Philips, SAP and Unilever have contributed by publishing their best practices and specific implementation guidance.
The Climate Drive team is working closely with companies, academia, industry experts, We Mean Business Coalition and WBCSD’s Global Network partners, in particular from Australia (BCSDA) and Brazil (CEBDS), who will engage their members in the piloting phase.
The project is now entering a new phase to deliver the first version by 2024 and is looking for partners to support this effort. If you are interested in joining us on this journey, please email us at theclimatedrive@wbcsd.org
WBCSD would like to express its gratitude to the following companies and partners for their support: ABInBev, Aptar, Bayer, CLP Holdings, DuPont, edp, Iberdola, Nationalgrid, Philips, SAP, Swire Pacific, Oxford Net Zero, Unilever, Urenco
Global Network Partners: BCSDA, CEBDS
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