Climate Strategy

The “best practices” for CO₂ management are not delivering results.

Companies using them are

Companies take step back from making climate target promises — hundreds failed to lay out goals aligned with the Paris agreement.
— Financial Times, 2024
In 2024, hundreds of companies including Microsoft, Unilever and JBS had their “1.5 degree aligned” status removed.
Companies are failing to meet their targets
Integrity of Climate Strategies: High 0%, Reasonable 4%, Moderate 12%, Low 40%, Very Low 44%
Source: newclimate.org — Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor 2022
0% of assessed corporate climate strategies rated high integrity
Annual CO2 emissions since 1960, with the past three decades highlighted: 50% of all historical CO2 emissions were released in the past three decades
Despite business commitments and targets, global emissions keep rising

You're going to need a real strategy.

A real climate strategy answers three questions

Most “climate strategies” are a CO₂ reduction plan with a new name — targets floating in space, scope 3 you can't control, busywork that never touches a business decision. Reduction is one tactic, and for most companies it's not even the most important one. A real climate strategy starts where business strategy starts: with your position, your leverage, and the world you'll be operating in.

1

What's the most we can do in the fight against climate change?

Your biggest lever is rarely your own footprint. It might be your influence on clients, your sector, your supply chain, or policy.

2

What are we willing to do to speed up the energy transition?

An honest level of ambition, set by leadership — not a number copied from a framework.

3

What does our business look like in a world shaped by climate change?

How you'll compete, make money, and matter — during the transition and after it.

From “we should do something” to a strategy your board can act on

Phase 1

Your power to create change

Key question: What is our biggest lever on climate change?
  • Analyze your context: climate risks, the low-carbon economy, your competitive position
  • Align climate with business strategy using the standard tools — PESTLE, SWOT, Five Forces
  • Set a real level of ambition, decided by leadership
You get: a clear ambition and a vision of the specific outcome you're working toward.
Phase 2

Your objective

Key question: What is blocking decarbonization of our sector?
  • Map the politics and economics of the transition in your value chain
  • Identify the real blockers — not the convenient ones
  • Target positive tipping points: the places where a small force produces outsized change
You get: clarity on what's actually blocking progress, and where your business can push.
Phase 3

Your plan

Key question: What are the safe, smart, logical steps to change that?
  • Build a theory of change connecting your actions to your objective
  • Stress-test it with scenario analysis
  • Consolidate everything into a strategy — formatted as a transition plan that satisfies CSRD/CSDDD-style requirements
You get: a theory of change, an action plan, and a compliant transition plan.

What the difference looks like in practice

Without a strategy

A transport company wants to electrify its fleet but can't — there's no charging infrastructure. So it buys two EVs as a pilot, reports the purchase, and waits.

With a strategy

The same company buys the EVs — and lobbies the officials responsible for charging infrastructure, sponsors a study on charging-point locations, and withdraws from a trade association that's lobbying against EVs. It stops waiting for the blocker to remove itself and goes after the blocker.

Someone benefits from the current high-emissions status quo, and they are not waiting politely. Neither should you.

We already have a climate strategy.

If it's a list of reduction tactics with a target on top, you have a CO₂ plan — a useful tactic, not a strategy. Nothing you've built is wasted: measurement, targets, and reduction work all slot into the strategy as tools. We build on it; we don't bin it.

We need this for CSRD / transition plan requirements.

Good — the output is formatted as a transition plan that meets those requirements. The difference is that yours will describe a strategy you actually intend to execute, which is also the version that holds up to scrutiny.

Isn't this just more sustainability spend with no return?

The strategy is built from your business strategy — how you compete and make money through the transition — not bolted on next to it. That's the test for every action in the plan: real impact, and a defensible business reason.

Start with one call

In 30 minutes we'll tell you honestly whether a climate strategy would change what your business does — or whether your situation is simple enough that good CO₂ management covers it. If we don't think we can add real value, we'll say so on the call and screen ourselves out.

Services are offered on a subscription basis you can cancel at any time. 100% of our clients have returned for more work.

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