Press Release – Value Change Initiative Launches to Enable Businesses to Achieve Net Zero Value Chains

New ‘Value Change Initiative’ brings together 60 partners including some of the world’s largest corporations and civil society organizations to make Scope 3 carbon emissions easier to measure and reductions easier to incentivize.

By providing clarity and confidence in claims made by companies towards their Scope 3 targets, the initiative is set to increase the level of investment and action needed for businesses to stay within a 1.5 degree pathway.

With an increasing number of companies setting science-based targets and net zero commitments, the challenge remains how; how to achieve ‘net zero?’ While value chain or “Scope 3” emissions represent a high percentage of many corporate carbon footprints, currently, there is no global regulation or credible guidelines on how companies can report on, account for, and claim reductions in value chain emissions. This has hindered both action and investment in the space.

To solve this challenge and accelerate global corporate climate action Gold Standard and SustainCERT have launched the world’s first and only multi-stakeholder initiative to help companies deliver on Scope 3 commitments and meet their Science Based Targets.

The Value Change Initiative (VCI) brings together 60 partners including some of the world’s largest corporations, key civil society partners and 130 technical experts to collectively innovate to co-create guidance and establish best practice on how impacts of value chain projects can be recognized.

Now with clarity on how to drive down emissions, businesses and investors can understand where to scale their efforts – a solution which has sorely been missing from the climate movement.

“Scope 3 emissions are the most complex to tackle – representing the largest percent of corporate emissions, yet with the least direct ability for companies to control them. By launching The Value Change Initiative, together with our partners, we hope to remove barriers to driving meaningful corporate climate action, reported in a way that investors and consumers alike can trust.” - Margaret Kim, CEO, Gold Standard.

“The Value Change Initiative is set up to find ways to collectively innovate, and define best practice; and builds on an increasing number of companies who have committed to net zero, and made commitments to reduce their emissions. Together, we have built a consortium of ambitious companies who together are writing a playbook for positive change.” - Sandra Genee, Head of the Value Change Initiative.

“In the transformation to net-zero, there are two areas that need a paradigm shift. The first is how we approach scope 3 / value-chain decarbonization. The second is how we scale-up climate finance and mitigation beyond a company’s value-chain. These two critical topics come together in the SBTi Net-Zero Standard and the Value Change Initiative led by Gold Standard and SustainCERT,” said Alberto Carrillo Pineda, Managing Director and Co-Founder of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).