Top Resources to Support Climate Mitigation

The next few years are crucial when it comes to climate action. Businesses need to be engaged rapid decarbonization of their operations and their value chains.

To limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C and avoid the worst climate impacts, the IPCC is clear: we need to nearly halve the global carbon footprint by 2030. There is also an urgent need to address the emissions that have already been released into the atmosphere through the large-scale deployment of natural and technological "carbon dioxide removal" or "negative emissions" solutions.

Global emissions should already be decreasing – instead, we continue to see record highs in global temperatures, global greenhouse gas emissions, and continued fossil fuel subsidies.

The rise in global greenhouse gas emissions is slowing, but not quickly enough

The climate crisis affects us all. Climate impacts will become even more severe if the increase in global temperature is not kept below 1.5°C, and yet efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally continue to fall well short of those needed.

New research indicates that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is increasing ten times faster than at any point in the past 50,000 years. This unprecedented pace, “largely driven by human emissions,” means that natural increases in temperature that once took 7,000 years to achieve are now occurring in only five to six years.

In other words, global heating is accelerating.

At the same time, corporate progress on climate change – such as setting and meeting ambitious emission reduction targets – is slowing rather than growing.

What are the expectations on companies?

Large corporations represent an outsized portion of global emissions, and therefore have an outsized responsibility to reduce their climate impact.

To avoid the worst impacts of climate change and drive the transition to a just, net-zero, climate-resilient future, businesses need to do their part. Companies are increasingly expected to set credible net zero commitments and interim targets in alignment with key frameworks and authorities, such as the IPCC. This means measuring and reporting on Scope 1 (direct), Scope 2 (purchased energy) and Scope 3 (value chain) emissions and bringing them down to zero, ideally by 2040. Companies are also expected to address key interlinked issues, such as the restoration of nature and the elimination of pollution and waste.

More than half of the world’s largest companies have made net zero commitments, and the collective ambition of companies’ climate-related (interim) targets and goals have gradually improved over the last few years. However, a major credibility gap remains; few companies are on track to reduce their emissions in line with the reductions required to limit global warming to below 1.5°C.

All companies have a responsibility to take credible and timely action on climate mitigation. We cannot afford further delays and half-measures.

Key Resources

Most sustainability professionals will already be familiar with goal-setting guidance from the Science Based Targets initiative, the CDP’s questionnaire and scoring system, and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s standards for measuring and managing GHG emissions.

In addition to these fundamentals, we have identified resources that can help you to set credible net zero targets and commitments, expand and accelerate mitigation efforts, and make informed decisions on carbon offsets and credits.

Setting Targets and Commitments

1. Integrity Matters: Net zero commitments by non-state entities – A briefing for board directors

This report from the Climate Governance Initiative sets out five key principles and ten key recommendations that can help board members to develop and implement credible and comprehensive net-zero commitments. This resource provides a holistic set of meaningful actions that companies can take, as well as key questions directors should ask.

2. The Net Zero Tracker

The tracker provides an overview of net zero commitments across the world's largest regions, cities, and companies. This benchmarking tool can help you to better understand and assess the credibility of commitments from the world’s largest publicly-traded companies, with detailed information on target status; the scale and scope of emissions coverage; the quality of governance; and their use of offsets.

3. Degree of Urgency: Accelerating Actions to Keep 1.5°C on the Table

This report from the Energy Transitions Commissions (ETC) assesses progress since COP26 and outlines the priority areas for accelerated action. The report provides a good summary of the steps required to close the 'gap' in climate-related ambition, implementation, and financing within sectors and countries.

Accelerating Emissions Reduction Efforts

1. Addressing Scope 3: A Start Here Guide

Our guide was created for leaders of companies of all sizes to understand the basics of Scope 3 emissions and how companies should begin to take credible action. The guidance is anchored in the real-world experience of companies that are already navigating this journey.

2. Collaborating for Value Chain Decarbonisation: A Scope 3 Guide

Rapid decarbonisation of our economy is essential, and the key is collaboration across the value chain. Our guide provides practical advice and examples to help you support your supply chain partners to decarbonise. The guide features advice on how companies are prompting, influencing, supporting, and investing in their value chain and resources. It also provides ideas for how to support key decarbonisation pathways, including renewable energy adoption, logistics, lower-impact agriculture and land-use, and carbon removal.

3. Accounting for Natural Climate Solutions Guidance

Natural climate solutions have been recognised as key levers in mitigating the negative impacts of climate change. This guide from Quantis delivers a robust methodology to embed land-related emissions in corporate and product footprints, which can be used for setting science-based climate targets.

4. The Climate Drive

This platform from WBCSD features several tools that can support your organisation’s net zero transition. These include an Action Library that features tangible, high-impact actions and recommendations from peers; an online Readiness Check that helps you assess your current goals, policies, and practices relating to decarbonisation; and a Net Zero Guidebook designed to help you build and leverage your net zero knowledge.

5. Project Drawdown

Project Drawdown has created a wide range of resources to help business leaders and sustainability professionals rapidly assess the evolving landscape of climate change solutions. The Drawdown Review offers key insights and a straight-forward solutions framework that can help your organisation move the world towards "Drawdown" – the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and begin to decline. Their other top resources include an online course on climate solutions; job function action guides; and a comprehensive table of solutions.

6. Achieving global climate goals by 2050: Pathways to a 1.5° C Future

This report from the ClimateWorks Foundation can help you better understand the distribution and scale of climate mitigation opportunities. Based on scenario modelling, it highlights priority areas across eight geographies and eleven sectors.

Navigating Carbon Offsetting, Insetting, and Carbon Markets

1. Our blog series on carbon offsetting and insetting

Despite controversies and divisive debate, the voluntary carbon market is experiencing explosive growth. We have created a three-part blog series on carbon offsetting to help you better understand the role that carbon offsets and credits can play in a climate strategy, as well as how to better assess the credibility of mitigation projects. Our first blog explains carbon offsets and credits, why there are growing criticisms, and the reasons why companies may still be needing to use them; our second blog explains common problems among offset projects and provides suggestions and insights to support your selection process; and our third and final blog explains carbon insetting – an emerging alternative that involves identifying and supporting emissions reduction within your own value chain.

2. The Core Carbon Principles

The Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) are a global benchmark that can help your company to better assess the quality of carbon credits and to ensure that your purchases are having real and verifiable impact on the climate. The CCPs were created by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) to help standardise the quality of carbon credits sold on the voluntary market, and were developed through global cooperation from hundreds of key stakeholders and organisations throughout the voluntary carbon market. The ICVCM has also created a guidebook that presents their assessment framework; their recommended assessment procedure; and an overview of the CCPs and their implementation through the assessment framework.

3. Claims Code of Practice: Building integrity in voluntary carbon markets

The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity initiative’s (VCMI) Claims Code provides clarity, recommendations, and supporting guidance to companies on how they can credibly make – and communicate – voluntary use of carbon credits as part of climate commitments.

4. A Practical Guide to Insetting

This guide from the International Platform for Insetting shares insights and provides recommendations that can help you to transform your supply chain for a resilient, regenerative, net zero carbon future that values and protects nature. The guide was created specifically for insetting practitioners and stakeholders that want to learn more about the concept, and it highlights lessons and opportunities for realising the full potential of insetting.

Further Resources

To learn more about climate-related goals and commitments, check out or Sustainability Goals Database and Position Database. You can also check out our Issue Snapshots to learn more about the causes and impacts of climate change, its relevance to business, and the actions required to halt and reverse it.