Climate action: charting the path to carbon neutrality

This year’s Earth Overshoot Day fell on 2nd August. This is the day when annual natural resource use exceeds the planet’s ability to regenerate. The day creeps earlier in the calendar year-on-year. 

Business executives globally are therefore under pressure to set viable strategies to reach net zero throughout their supply chains. And there is some progress. We are constantly turning to alternative energy sources, low-carbon solutions and resilient agriculture to tackle scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. The International Day of Indigenous Peoples and International Youth Day in August both focused on the role of youth in future climate action. In the US, the Inflation Reduction Act was introduced in 2022 and has since shown progress in greater clean energy provision, solar power supply and electric vehicle sales.

At this year’s future of climate action conference in Washington, DC (8th-9th November), an expert group of cross-industry practitioners will gather to discuss the practical action business can take to tackle scope 3 emissions and assess how supply chain innovation and low-carbon solutions can deliver results on the ground. Registrations are open – click here to join us. Ahead of the event, the Innovation Forum team has been working to highlight the main areas of innovation within the industry and speak to leading businesses and experts on these important topics.

Nature-positive is certainly a current hot topic. The World Economic Forum defines nature-positive as actions that enhance the resilience of our planet and societies to halt and reverse nature loss. Given agriculture’s on-going impact, with over half of the Earth is used for farming, nature-positive and regenerative agricultural seems likely to have significant potential.

To make sense of what being nature-positive looks like in practice, Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh spoke with Matt Inbusch from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and Mike Nemeth at fertiliser business Nutrien, about the growing potential for nature-positive approaches across agricultural value chains. They shared helpful guidance on how to navigate the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities presented from nature-positive agriculture.

To build agri-food resilience, the need for leadership and collaboration to bring collective action across entire value chains is immense. At a recent Innovation Forum webinar, hosted in partnership with Regrow, panellists discussed the regenerative approaches, tools and technologies that leading brands are using to drive this collaboration.

Moderator Ian Welsh was joined by Anastasia Volkova from Regrow, General Mills’ Jay Watson and Janelle Meyers from the Kellogg Company. The hour-long session covered how to build partnerships in driving resilience through regenerative agriculture and how jurisdictional sourcing approaches can enable businesses to support farmer livelihoods and regenerate landscapes.

You can watch the video recording here or listen as a podcast here.

The voluntary carbon markets are recognised by promising tool for businesses to reach their corporate net zero goals. National interests in carbon markets are also growing, with 83% of Nationally Determined Contributions open to the use of international market mechanisms.

Innovation Forum and Everland have partnered to publish a content series to share case studies and the potential of voluntary carbon markets and REDD+ projects when they are done well. During a recent trip to Cambodia, Ian Welsh spoke with key stakeholders in delivering and benefitting from effective carbon market solutions.

The former minister for the environment and now deputy prime minister of the Royal Government of Cambodia, Say Samal, talked with Ian Welsh about how the country benefits from REDD+ carbon projects and in particular in terms of forest preservation and positive impacts for indigenous peoples living in the forests. Listen to the full podcast here.

Ian also spoke with Charles Bedford from Carbon Growth Partners on why investing in forest projects is good business. And Kong Bunchhean and Uk Troap, farmers living in the Southern Cardamom region shared how REDD+ project funding has enabled them to develop a sustainable livelihood, and stop deforesting.

Evermore companies are making commitments to cut emissions and progress towards net zero, but many still struggle with how to measure and track their progress. New climate accounting technologies are emerging to combat this. By integrating supply chain data, companies can provide concrete evidence and metrics to support their green claims.

Investors are also on the constant lookout for data – data creates trust. The caveat to such technologies is inconsistency and incomplete data points, making it difficult for ESG investment. During a recent interview with Ian Welsh, Saif Hameed from Altruistiq, discussed these challenges in tracking emissions data and shared what the future of data tracking might look like. Click here to listen to the full interview.

Technology companies such as Chloris Geospatial have been working to deliver the data analysis that helps companies deliver on their targets. Marco Albani, CEO of Chloris Geospatial, talked with Ian Welsh about how remote sensing data can enable better understanding of carbon impacts and ultimately strive for a nature-positive approach. Listen to the podcast here.