Highlighted the disruptive and transformative nature of digitalisation and the opportunities as well as challenges that this provides. Presented by WWF and partners at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg with a call for ICT companies to become solution providers and other stakeholders to use digitalisation as an opportunity to transform in a sustainable direction.

A table was introduced that presented a range of direct, indirect, and systemic effects resulting from the provision and use of telecommunications products and services.

New technologies and knowledge can ensure that sustainable resource use and economic development is not only possible but mutually supportive. By approaching the challenges from a new perspective, problems can turn into opportunities.

Identifying the key areas where IKEA can have a positive impact in society and link sales to positive impacts in society. The official strategy was launched 2012.

This paper is based on WWF’s work with IT/ICT, particularly a joint initiative with HP where the key objective is to identify the first billion tonnes of CO₂ reductions through the use of IT. The paper is also a contribution to the collaboration between WWF and the World Economic Forum.

China is the factory of the world providing us with a large variety of products at an affordable price. Lowering prices on renewable energy and energy efficiency products is also a key issue in our battle to mitigate climate change. Baoding is recognized by the Chinese Government as a first and only industrial base for development of China’s new energy sector. The world needs a dramatic increase in renewable energy if we are to be able to secure a sustainable energy supply for the global economy and avoid dangerous climate change. Baoding is therefore a key to global sustainable development.

The Sustainable Innovation Zone, SIZ, is an internal HP web portal engaging employees to share ideas on ICT applications that can help reduce CO₂ emissions. Rather than focusing on how HP can reduce its own environmental impact, the SIZ focuses on how HP can help customers reduce their carbon footprint by using HP solutions. The SIZ promotes ICT applications that significantly reduce CO₂ emissions, the use of resources and improve service quality.

The report predicts that the emissions from the ICT sector will represent an estimated 3% of total global emissions by 2020 but that ICT will enable others to achieve significant emissions reductions, helping other industries and consumers avoid an estimated 7.8 gigatonnes of CO2e emissions by 2020. That is 15% of predicted total global emissions – or five times ICT’s own footprint. Additionally, applying ICT solutions to sectors such as energy, buildings, transport and commerce can save up to €600 billion and create 15 million green jobs globally by the year 2020.

The severity of the climate change challenge requires even more action from the investment community in the near future. This is where SWFs can step in and take a leadership role to move the investment community in the right direction.

The difference in how companies approach the need for a low-carbon economy is creating a new corporate landscape where new winners and losers will emerge and where ICT customers must learn to navigate. This is an assessment of 24 of the industry's world-leading providers and an analysis of where the ICT industry is today in relation to its maturity in mitigating environmental risks and exploiting the opportunities that the need for reduced carbon emissions will create.

Whilst significant opportunity exists for ICT products and services to enable climate change mitigation, the opportunity is far from realising its potential. With climate change now being one of the top issues at global, intergovernmental level, a unified, clear message on the role of ICT is urgently required. This message needs to be delivered outside of the ICT sector. Otherwise, uninformed legislation and investment decisions would probably only focus on ICTs direct climate change impact and thereby limit both the overall positive impact of ICT, as well as reduce the total green technology market opportunity for the ICT sector.

A unified and clear message would allow the ICT sector to establish itself as a leading contributor that sees reduction of CO₂ as a driver for innovation and profit. It would also allow the sector to claim a leadership role as a winner in a low carbon economy.

During the BSR conference in New York a workshop. It was a really interesting event and both Tomas Bergmark, Head of Social & Environmental Affairs, IKEA/ Olle Blidholm, Development Manager, Social & Environmental Affairs, IKEA Olle from IKEA and Pierre Delforge, Worldwide Energy and Climate Programme Manager, HP made presentations that more people should see as they clearly showed that some companies already provide positive climate contributions and can do much more with the right incentive. Pankaj from WRI did a really interesting presentation about the next generation of reporting guidelines. With an introduction of secondary effects (that would include the consequences during the use phase, e.g. reduced traveling using laptops) a fantastic opportunity would exist for to assess the climate impact of products and services during the use phase (and not just the emissions associated with the use phase). He also made it clear that avoided emissions are outside the risk scope for the GHG protocol, one is part of a climate risk agenda the other could be seen as a climate opportunity agenda.

The hypothesis and vision underpinning this project is that sustainable biotechnology solutions, applied in the industrial sector, can provide a critical contribution in the transition from current, unsustainable, economic practices to more sustainable economic systems, which are able to meet human needs without destroying the natural ecosystems that support life (including human life) on our planet.

WWF’s innovation programme, Climate Solver aims to highlight innovative technologies that provide immediate and practical solutions to climate change. The Climate Solver Awards honour climate-smart entrepreneurs and businesses from China, India and the Nordic countries.

Incremental improvements in existing systems are insufficient measures in the battle against climate change. Many initiatives are well-intended, often in response to government policies, but these small changes will seldom contribute to the creation of a zero carbon society at the speed and scale that is necessary. There is even a risk that such incremental improvements might further lock society into a high-carbon infrastructure, making necessary reductions difficult or even impossible to achieve. Fortunately a growing number of companies with transformative solutions now view the creation of a low-carbon economy as a business opportunity rather than as a threat. These solutions deserve attention.

Over the last few years, discussions and strategies have shifted from an exclusive focus on big emitters and the need to reduce emissions by improving existing systems, to also focus on providers of low-carbon solutions and transformative change whereby services are provided in totally new ways (such as modal shifts and dematerialization). As a consequence the need for new reporting that can capture contributions from companies that provide solutions has emerged. The terminology is still under development, and the concepts are working names that have been used in the discussion related to the GHG-protocol and other systems for calculating emission reductions: Total emissions approach: A focus on the total impact, both positive and negative Climate Positive: A company that helps reduce more emissions in society than it emits over the whole value chain, Scope 1-3 Low-carbon market opportunities: The emissions that a company can contribute to reducing in society through the use of the products/ services and that are outside Scope 1-3

This methodology uses an LCA approach to guide the assessment of changes to the BAU system resulting from adoption of an ICT solution (the BAU, or business-as-usual, system refers to the components in the existing manual, mechanical or physical processes that are impacted by the implementation of the ICT solution). As this methodology was developed to assess the capacity of ICT implementation to reduce the carbon footprint of other sectors, it focuses on quantifying CO₂e (carbon dioxide equivalent) emissions. It does not assess other important environmental impact categories such as acidification, eutrophication, or land use, although the methodology could potentially be adapted in the future to consider these impacts.

This new research study identifies 16% more savings than was calculated in an earlier study conducted four years ago. The SMARTer2020 report evaluates GHG abatement potential from ICT-enabled solutions ranging across six sectors of the economy: power, transportation, manufacturing, consumer and service, agriculture, and buildings. Emission reductions come from virtualisation initiatives such as cloud computing and video conferencing, and also, through efficiency gains such as optimisation of variable-speed motors in manufacturing, smart livestock management to reduce methane emissions, and 32 other ICT-enabled solutions identified in the study.

BT Net Good’s 3:1 goal is based on the premise that BT is directly responsible for emissions resulting from its own operations (for example network, offices, commercial fleet and company cars) but also bears responsibility for emissions at both ends of its value chain: in its supply chain (producing the products and services it buys) and from its products and services when used by BT customers.

This document provides guidelines for calculating avoided GHG emissions enabled by chemical products, by comparing two solutions with the same user benefit. It also gives guidance on how to communicate the results.

AVERT is a free tool with a simple user interface designed to meet the needs of state air quality planners and other interested stakeholders. Non-experts can use AVERT to evaluate county, state and regional emissions displaced at fossil-fueled power plants by EE/ RE policies and programs.

As ICT has become faster, cheaper and more accessible globally, this report highlights its potential to generate powerful environmental, economic and social benefits beyond what we envisioned as recently as two years ago. The findings show an ICT-enabled world that is cleaner, healthier and more prosperous, with greater opportunities for individuals everywhere.

Our scalable impact services make impact expertise accessible, by leveraging self-assessment with lean expertise when and where needed. And with webinars and workshops we can help a dozen projects a day to forecast their climate impact.

This report:

1. Highlights the need for actionable climate impact tools for early-stage investors, and introduces Emissions Reduction Potential as the metric required for early-stage investors to make better informed investment decisions based on the potential climate impact of a new venture;
2. Defines a methodology for down selection – a process for narrowing from many companies to a smaller subset of potential investment targets – based on potential climate impact; and
3. Develops a methodology for estimating the Emissions Reduction Potential of a new venture.

A life cycle assessment in its current form does not assess positive environmental impacts. Some industries, individual companies, and initiatives have introduced handprints to communicate the environmental benefits of their actions. Yet these approaches differ in their principles making accountability difficult. Moreover, the wider the scope is (including environmental, social, and economic aspects), the more challenging the quantification becomes. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd and LUT University have developed an approach for quantifying the environmental handprint based on standardized methods.

Quantifying and clarifying contributions to global GHG reductions provides motivation for success, so “visualization” of contributions to reducing emissions of GHGs is important. As one effort towards this goal, Japanese industries have applied a system called “pledge and review” – in which companies pledge their own GHG reduction targets, implementing actual measures to achieve the targets, reviewing the measures and taking advanced global warming countermeasures- and the system has contributed to reductions of GHG emissions. “Contribution through law-carbon goods or services” and “international contributions” have already been included in and are now regarded as one of the important pillars in the Japan Business Federation’s “Commitment to a Low-Carbon Society”. Some industries in Japan are taking initiatives to quantify their reductions of GHG emissions, called avoided emissions.

Aiming to offer an alternative to the simplistic claims of "carbon neutrality" and "offsetting" often used by companies, Net Zero Initiative proposes a unique framework for private sector action in favor of the only carbon neutrality objective making sense: that of the planet and of the national territories.

In order to promote efforts to avoid emissions through the GVC, it is important to “visualize” the amount of CO₂ emissions avoided by companies and other various actors. By “visualizing” avoided emissions, companies can acknowledge the strengths of their products and services in a concrete manner. Furthermore, identifying these realities, they will be able to implement more effective climate change measures. What is important is that actors do not engage in “visualizing” avoided emissions for the purpose of claiming or fighting over credit for their contributions. The point is that each actor objectively evaluates the scale of environmental impact and potential avoided emissions based on the social characteristics of their business and quantifies avoided emissions through the value chain. This is in agreement with the spirit of voluntary approaches to be taken by various actors, as called for in the Paris Agreement. These efforts will further encourage cooperation among various concerned parties as well as stakeholder dialogue.

The report draws on input from academics, key international NGOs and over 500 use cases – also provides specific recommendations and actions for all who are committed to taking on the 2030 Agenda and helping move the world onto a sustainable path.

1. The Three-Step Solution Framework for Net-Zero Compatible Innovations (TSF) is the introductory framework, providing the context and background for the Net-Zero Compatible Solution Initiative. It describes how stakeholders can move from a reduction only perspective, to also include a solution perspective. It discusses the need to move beyond reductions in existing structures to sustainable system solutions.
2. The Avoided Emissions Framework (AEF) is at the core of the initiative and provides guidance for how avoided emissions can be assessed. The objective is to develop a draft framework that is capable of classifying and then ranking companies/ solutions, based on their positive climate impact, through their supply of low carbon products and services.
3. The 1.5°C Compatibility Pathfinder Framework (CPF) was developed in response to the IPCCs 1.5°C special report. It provides guidance for how innovations can be assessed to increase the probability for 1.5°C compatibility and especially whether they support an innovation driven low-energy demand pathway or focus mainly on supply-side measures.

This guide focuses on four pillars that need to be addressed in a company’s climate strategy to align with the 1.5°C ambition.

Pillar 3 focuses on the company’s impact in society through the use of its products and services. It shifts the focus from only reducing the footprint to also providing solutions. Such a shiftrequires the alignment of the company’s vision, strategy, value proposition, and customer offerings with the 1.5°C ambition.

Estimating emissions reduction potential is difficult, and doing it across hundreds of technologies is ambitious. We hope our users will view CRANE output reports as a helpful starting place for considering climate impact in their own diligence, reporting and conversations. Note that CRANE does not precisely forecast the future, but rather provides an estimate for future emissions reduction potential.

The purpose of this report is to present the PICU framework and the potential for incubators to play a key role in the urgent work to deliver the deep and fast emission reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate change. PICU is a framework with four steps to help incubators, identify start-ups with significant (P)otential, strengthen sustainability (I)deas, support (C)lustering, and enable accelerated (U)ptake of the solutions from the start-ups.

Identifying 1.5°C compatible innovations in the 4th industrial revolution that can deliver what is needed to allow 11 billion people to live flourishing lives.

Panasonic is targeting all aspects of its businesses to reduce CO₂ emissions, with three distinct areas of impact:

1. OWN IMPACT/SCOPE 1-3 (the emission reduction impact in the company's own value chain)
2. CONTRIBUTION IMPACT/ AVOIDED EMISSIONS (the emission reduction contribution impact on society of existing businesses)
3. FUTURE IMPACT/ FUTURE AVOIDED EMISSIONS (the emission reduction contribution impact on society of new businesses and technologies).

Many ESG ratings evaluate: “Does this ESG issue impact the profitability of the company?” We need a system that evaluates: “Does the growth of this company have a positive impact on the world?”

This evolution of ESG needs to be championed by institutional investors, rating agencies, public companies and the general public. As the world needs to strive for a substantial positive impact, we won’t be referring to ESG in this report. Instead, we’ll talk about Impact.

The “Expanded Innovation Agenda for Cities” initiative is a part of the UNFCCC Innovation Hub and will be implemented in collaboration with Mission Innovation, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy, ICLEI, and other partners. The initiative aims at promoting the development and deployment and rapid uptake of transformative 1.5°C compatible solutions, including technology, policy, financial instruments, cooperation, and business models. Cities are relevant in multiple roles including, providers, enablers, implementers, and exporters of 1.5°C compatible climate innovations.

The five key areas to making credible avoided emissions claims covered in this guidance include: ‍

• Defining avoided emissions
• Leveraging avoided emissions
• Ensuring the contribution is legitimate
• Assessing avoided emissions
• Reporting avoided emissions

This tool presents a four-step purpose driven climate impact assessment to assess the full climate impact from a company. Such an approach is important for three reasons. First, it broadens the focus beyond the product a company provides to also include the system delivering relevant impact, as well as the way a company delivers on human needs and how it changes structures and values in society. In this way the assessment provides a unique insight into how the company support, or undermine, a 1.5 °C global sustainable future. Current assessments that focus on companies reducing their own emissions can provide relevant insight, but also limit the focus to one where the best a company can do is to reduce emissions from current operations to zero, rather than developing globally sustainable system that support a future where 11 billion can live flourishing lives.
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Second, it provides an opportunity to better understand purpose driven companies with business models based on the goal of improving society in a sustainable way. It can also help companies become purpose driven by highlighting how it can use the need for sustainable solutions that deliver on human needs as a driver for innovation.
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Third, it can help stakeholders such as incubators, investors, and regions/cities to support globally sustainable solutions and support purpose driven companies.

In recognizing the potential value of avoided emissions, we acknowledge that this:

1. is an additional perspective to encourage companies’ positive action towards net zero society. Avoided emissions should not lead to discouraging companies to accelerate reducing their own SCOPE1-3 emissions.
2. is expected to be used as an additional perspective to promote/facilitate/provide recognition of the diffusion of clean goods and services needed globally to reach net-zero. Furthermore, it can also be used as a key metric to support decision-making within a company to prioritize and scale the deployment of solutions in markets with the greatest decarbonisation potential.
3. is not designed to exclude small medium enterprises (SMEs) or start-ups, while ensuring robust criteria and measurement standard for claiming avoided emissions. Any proposed avoided emissions criteria and measurement standard will be expected to develop with consideration of minimizing disproportionate impacts to small businesses