Gold Standard, Milkywire, and Murmur announced today their collaboration on establishing guidance, tools and infrastructure for “beyond value chain mitigation” (BVCM), a key pillar of corporate climate action to fairly and credibly take responsibility for ongoing emissions. This BVCM programme will provide operational principles, processes, and guidelines for companies to follow in order to make credible and transparent contributions to global net zero, beyond purchasing carbon credits.

In support of these aims, these tools will also be available to project and portfolio proponents seeking to provide credible climate action through this source of finance. This will include proponents in the carbon markets as well as funds.

”Currently, there is no comprehensive guidance available to help companies apply a BVCM strategy in a high-integrity manner, nor to those seeking to develop high quality climate mitigation to serve them”, said Owen Hewlett, Technical Director at Gold Standard. “Our collaboration will provide guidance and standardization for companies to become credible contributors to global net zero.” "Leading companies are already transitioning away from the former approach of merely offsetting emissions and proclaiming carbon neutrality," said Robert Höglund, manager of the Climate Transformation Fund at Milkywire. “We are excited to work together on creating new ways for companies to focus on climate impact, standardizing and evolving some of the approaches we have been piloting.” Will Hutton, Trustee of soon-to-be-launched charity Murmur, said: “It’s exciting to be part of a truly innovative project which will help corporates consider new and more holistic ways of acting in the context of the climate emergency.” 

Gold Standard will lead the consortium and coordinate the activities of the parties. Milkywire and Murmur will provide expertise and support as needed, and will participate in the development and testing of operational principles, processes, and guidelines. The consortium will also engage with additional partners and stakeholders, such as external expert groups, who can support the development and implementation of the BVCM pillar of corporate action.

The consortium will create guidance, closely aligned with the Science Based Targets Initiative, around; commitments that companies should make before engaging with BVCM; appropriate costing approaches such as adopting an internal carbon fee; categories of activity that a company could invest in to achieve climate impact; criterias for investment as well as how companies might measure impact from BVCM contributions, and what they might claim from using a BVCM strategy. The focus on creating a detailed guide for operationalizing BVCM aims to complement, and build upon the work of the Science Based Target Initiative that is currently preparing high-level guidance on BVCM. 

This comes together with the Gold Standard’s ‘Initial Climate Strategies Framework for Organisations’ released today - a broader guide in which the need for more concrete guidance on Beyond Value Chain Mitigation is highlighted.  

Gold Standard is a renowned, pioneering standards body that aims to drive the transition to a sustainable and inclusive global economy. It does this by developing and implementing standards and certification systems that enable individuals, organizations, and governments to take ambitious climate action and achieve measurable and verified sustainability impacts. 

Milkywire is a leading impact platform dedicated to growing financing for high quality environmental projects while enhancing efficiency and transparency. Milkywire has created the pioneering Climate Transformation Fund that supports projects within carbon removal, advocacy, nature restoration and protection to help reach global net zero, providing an alternative to offsetting. The fund is supported by companies like Spotify, Klarna and ING.

Murmur is a soon-to-be-launched charity which aims to unite the arts and music industries around science-based climate action, led by the implementation Beyond Value Chain Mitigation thinking.

For more information, please contact: Daniel Magrath  at daniel.magrath@goldstandard.org 

Author: MIlkywire