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Vision

We believe a better future is possible.

A planet that has warmed by 2° is much better than one that has warmed by the 3.5° (or more) that will result if we continue on the “business-as-usual” pathway.

But a home closer to 1.5° is much better still.
We can – and should – expect more, and work for more. Large companies, and the governments running large economies have extraordinary power to compel their value chains to transition faster and more deeply than a two-degree world would require.

Our vision is a world that stops short of warming by two degrees, and has used the incentives and coordinating power of capitalism to get there. A healthier planet, served by a more responsible capitalism – one that recognizes the full impacts of corporate activities – is within our grasp.
That flourishing future world continues to grow and develop, and meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.This phrasing was developed for the 1987 Brundtland Report, and its relevance and urgency has only grown. The transition goes beyond energy and emissions. It encompasses resilience, nature-positive solutions, and changes across entire economies.
Purpose

we exist to drive value chain transition - and accelerate the adoption of a more responsible capitalism

“Scope 3” is the term given to impacts of a company’s value chain. In many cases, these relate mainly to a company’s suppliers.
A fashion retailer buys clothing from a range of manufacturers, who in turn buy textiles and thread and buttons from other suppliers, and each of those have their own emissions profiles - as well as other environmental impacts. For most sectors, Scope 3 is the largest part of a company’s emissions, and it is also the hardest to account for.

At the same time, companies near the end of value chains have great power to drive transition. They can use their buying power to push for dramatic changes from their suppliers.
In some cases, their buying power alone is enough. In other cases, companies may wish to buy a much greener product, but find that a ”green premium” remains: that is, the transition-aligned input is still more expensive than the existing, polluting option. In this case, other sources of finance exist – specifically from governments. “Scope 3 transition finance” refers to all the capital, from the public, private and philanthropic sectors, that is ready to accelerate the transition. We exist to mobilize that capital to drive real economy outcomes.
Approach

our mission rests on driving the adoption of the Scope 3 Market Mechanism  (S3MM) - a groundbreaking legal construct that places transition outcomes and transfers of payments into a contract

Capitalism rests on contracts and incentives.
With contracts, suppliers know what they must supply, by when, and to whom, in order to be paid in full. If they fall short, they know what underperformance will cost. 

Until now, there has been no market standard template for upstream-facing Scope 3 incentivization.
Various things explained this, including :
  • 1.a lack of principles against which to assess industry-specific performance;
  • 2.a lack of third-party monitoring to drive confidence;
  • 3.a lack of a framework that meets the needs of potential subsidy providers​, such as governments;
  • 4.a lack of reliable data about the contributions of different players in a value chain.
In the last few years, all four of these issues have been, or are close to being, resolved.

Principles

A multi-party effort, led by Oxford University, has established the Oxford Principles for Net Zero-aligned offsetting. Principle 4 calls for innovative and integrated approaches to achieving net zero. SBTi has established sector-specific guidance.

Monitoring

The contract at the heart of the S3MM, a Sector Transition Acceleration Contract (STAC), developed by Linklaters, lays out the approach that an expert review committee must take when evaluating whether the environmental benefit delivered by a supplier meets the requirements in the contract.
And how claims are to by evaluated and audited by third parties.

Meeting the needs of subsidy providers

Governments understand that it is less costly to pay to accelerate the transition now than it is to adapt to the consequences later. In simple terms, speed equals savings. The list of costs and risks to government budgets is long, and includes stronger bridges, more frequent flooding, lower crop yields, and public health impacts. The Mitigation Action Facility, a fund created by the governments of Germany and the United Kingdom, is a pool of capital for exactly this purpose. But governments also need rigorous audit and evaluation of how taxpayer money is spent, and this requirement is designed into the S3MM. Furthermore, the role of governments in this setting is not to subsidize the whole cost of a transition-aligned option. Their role is instead to bring the green choice into cost parity, or to close the “green premium.” A relatively small amount of catalytic capital can unlock a much larger amount of private sector capital. This approach, sometimes known as “blended finance” is critical to accelerating the transition.

DATA

Scope 3 impacts are notoriously difficult to account for. The direct emissions of a fabric manufacturer (e.g., fuel combusted by vehicles in its fleet (Scope 1), or power consumed to run looms in its factories (Scope 2)) become the Scope 3 emission of an apparel-maker that cuts and sews rolls of denim into jeans. And the apparel-makers Scope 1 and 2 emissions in turn become the emissions of a fashion retailer But methodologies and collection methods have improved enough to make it clear that many companies with Net Zero targets will miss them without stronger Scope 3 interventions. CDP, an S3ID partner, has played a leading role in standardizing and improving emissions disclosure over the last 20 years. It is a global NGO, which tracks the emissions 23,000 companies on its platform, and of over 80% of the S&P 500.
Background

Scope 3 Impact Delta is collaboration between Impact Delta and Scope 3 Climate Capital (S3CC)

S3CC is a UK Community Interest Company (CIC) established in early 2023. Impact Delta is a US-based sustainability-focused advisory firm, whose mission is to accelerate the adoption of a more responsible capitalism.
CICs are a corporate form for the use of people who want to conduct a business or other activity for community benefit, and not purely for private advantage.

S3CC was formed to bring together ideas and perspectives of experts from across industry, finance, NGOs, academia, and government, around a shared vision and plan for driving a faster transition by leveraging the power and potential of value chains and a market-based approach. Scope 3 Climate Capital’s Steering Committee’s pioneering, strategic and impact-driven collaboration led the engagement of Linklaters, a leading UK law firm approximately six months later.
The Linklaters partnership sponsored a team to develop the template for the Sector Transition Acceleration Contract (STAC). As momentum continued to build around the idea, the S3CC team benefitted from input from individuals from Volvo, ING Bank, Rocky Mountain Institute, Science Based Targets Initiative, Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative, CDP, Gold Standard Foundation, Grantham Institute, University of Oxford, Harvard Business School, Chia Networks, Deloitte, UK HM Treasury and FCDO, WRI, Ørsted, Skanska, Imperial College London, Arcelor Mittal and Apella Advisors.
Team members

Advisory Council

  • Nate Aden leads the Science Based Targets initiative’s work with financial institutions. He has been with SBTi since 2015 and over the years has contributed to the technical foundations of the initiative, including previously leading the chemicals sector work. In addition to SBTi, Nate is a Senior Fellow with the World Resources Institute’s Climate Program.

    Nate has more than 20 years of experience working on industry, trade, energy, and climate in Asia, the U.S., and Europe. He has authored or co-authored dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles and reports, including “Technologies and policies to decarbonize global industry: Review and assessment of mitigation drivers through 2070”. He works with financial institutions, industry associations, and other stakeholders to help them set Science-Based Targets for GHG emissions reductions. His research on country low-carbon transformation has been written up in the New York Times and he is a frequent speaker at industry and academic conferences.

    Nate holds a PhD from the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, a master’s degree from Stanford University, and a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. In his free time, Nate enjoys rock climbing, biking, and swimming in lakes.

  • Kaya Axelsson is a research fellow and head of Policy and Partnerships at Oxford Net Zero, an interdisciplinary climate change mitigation research programme at the University of Oxford.

    Kaya earned a distinction for her research on politically unlikely renewable energy coalitions. Her current research is on the emerging net zero policy landscape. She has recently served as a strategic advisor to the UN-backed Race to Zero campaign and as a technical author on the International Standard Organization’s new Net Zero Guidelines. With 15 years of experience in social and environmental sustainability, Kaya speaks and consults regularly for organizations and initiatives on their climate strategies.

  • Kristof is the co-founder and managing director of Cultivo Advisors, a specialist investment manager focused on natural capital projects and nature-based high-quality carbon credits. He has over 20 years of experience managing money for institutional investors in environmental commodities, farmland, forestry, water rights, agriculture, climate tech, and energy efficiency. Previous roles included senior positions at BMO and Liontrust, having started his career at Goldman Sachs and subsequently joining Griffin Capital. He is a CFA charterholder and earned an undergraduate degree from Durham University and a master’s degree in Economics from LSE.

  • James is Director of CDP’s Sustainable Finance Program, overseeing the organization’s work financial institutions and businesses, facilitating engagement, disclosures and data insights through a customized questionnaire.

    Prior to this, James managed CDP’s UK & Worldwide Supply Chain team, working with large businesses to engage their suppliers and drive impactful disclosure throughout their supply chains. This included launching CDP’s program in India and overseeing expansion in the UK and Middle East markets.

    Earlier in his career, James worked in international development, focusing on rural, last-mile development in Africa, and in India’s agricultural sector. James holds a master’s degree in international development from SOAS at the University of London, and an undergraduate degree from the Aberystwyth University.

  • Emily is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University, where she focuses at the nexus of climate finance, net zero transition, scaling and speeding innovation and the commercialization of new climate solutions. She is a member of the IFRS Foundation Advisory Council advising the ISSB and IASB Sustainability and Accounting Boards, and earlier led IBM Global Climate Offerings and Climate Tech Partnerships. As a World Economic Forum AI Fellow, Emily represented IBM in the cross-industry Responsible Use of AI program, building on her experience in the AI financial services practice. Emily’s earlier strategic and operating business career spans JP Morgan, Fidelity Investments, Prudential Financial and American Express where she built, scaled and ran industry-leading businesses.

    Emily is founding co-chair of the 100 Women in Finance ESG Peer Advisory Group, is a member of the Economic Club of New York and of the Harvard Data Science Initiative Advisory Board. She is published with Harvard Business School in financial innovation, is a senior editor for Harvard Social Impact Review, and holds a patent for digital capabilities now used by Amazon.com.

  • Cynthia is a Sustainability and Climate Specialist Leader at Deloitte. She provides strategic and technical advice to Deloitte staff and clients on sustainability and climate related topics such as Greenhouse Gas (GHG) accounting and reporting, science-based target setting, Scope 3 GHG emissions reductions strategies, carbon credits and climate-related claims, preparation for national and state climate disclosure legislation, and climate transition planning.

    Cynthia has been a pioneer in the corporate GHG management space for more than 25 years, working to define corporate climate leadership and designing and managing various government and NGO programs that incentivize companies to reduce GHG emissions. Most notably, Cynthia worked at the World Resources Institute where she co-founded and co-led the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and was the Deputy Director of the GHG Protocol where she led the development of various corporate GHG accounting and reporting standards and research on emerging GHG management issues. Earlier in her career, Cynthia was the founding director of the U.S. EPA’s Climate Leaders Program, which was the first effort in the U.S. to incentivize companies to measure and disclose their corporate GHG emissions and set ambitious emissions reduction targets.

    She is currently an Expert Advisory Group member of the SBTi’s Finance Net Zero Standard and a Governance Committee Member of the Advanced and Indirect Mitigation (AIM) Platform.

    Cynthia holds a MPA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and an undergraduate degree from Cornell University.

  • Charles co-founded and is a partner at Impact Delta, a specialist advisory firm created in 2020 to accelerate the adoption of a more responsible capitalism. The firm advises clients, principally private markets investors, on developing and implementing industry-leading approaches to sustainability, in order to drive superior returns and asset-raising performance. He served in 2019 as a Senior Advisor with TPG’s Rise Fund, and from 2008-2017 held a range of leadership and operating roles at PIMCO, a global investment management firm. He began his career as a consultant with McKinsey & Company in London. Charles holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Edinburgh, an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

  • Dexter is CDP’s Chief Commercial and Partnerships Officer, leading its mission-led work with investors, companies, cities, states and regions to build a sustainable economy by measuring and acting on their environmental impact.

    Since joining CDP in 2008, he has applied his passion for the standardization and harmonization of environmental reporting standards to change the way large companies and governments think about climate change and sustainability. This includes spearheading CDP’s world-leading Supply Chain program and developing market-leading products for companies.

    A champion for technology’s role in helping to solve our environmental crisis, Dexter also sits on the advisory boards for AI for the Planet, Giki and NZDPU.

  • As Chief Technical Officer at The Gold Standard Foundation, Owen leads the technical team at Gold Standard, overseeing all the Foundation’s standards and assurance work as well as its technical policy, R&D and innovation. Owen’s work encompasses the financial and MRV-related mechanisms of the Paris Treaty, the SDGs and corporate strategies. Owen led the development of the pioneering ‘Gold Standard for the Global Goals’, a first of-its-kind impact-standard focused on the Sustainable Development Goals.  Owen is currently the technical lead on the Climate Ledger Initiative’s ‘Next Generation MRV’ approaches that incorporate innovative technologies, along with major innovations in the carbon markets, corporate reporting and  finance markets. He also serves on the technical council of SBTi, and holds a master’s degree in geographical sciences from the University of Bristol. 

  • Lars Kvale is Vice President of Market Solutions for Climate Finance at Chia Network, a sustainable, secure, and regulatory compliant blockchain. Kvale’s work centers on improving the efficiency, accessibility, and simplicity of environmental markets. Prior to Chia, he spent time in leadership roles at Greenprint, APX, NYSE Blue and the Center for Resource Solutions with a focus on creating and enabling sustainability markets.  He continues to serve in an advisory capacity for initiatives developing blue carbon projects and Caribbean sustainability projects, solutions for scope 3 decarbonization, and international renewable energy markets.

  • Mark has worked on market-based mechanisms for environmental protection for over 25 years. He is currently the Executive Director of VCMI and co-founded both the Gold Standard and the Verified Carbon Standard. He was formerly CEO of international non-profit The Climate Group, Managing Director of the Orbitas climate transition risks initiative and Climate Advisor to the Government of Ecuador. Mark is a member of the Governing Board of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Markets and Verra and a member of the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Markets. 

  • James is Head of Impact at the Center for Climate-Aligned Finance and a Senior Expert at RMI. A practitioner and thought leader with expertise in climate, sustainable finance, and industrial decarbonisation, he works to align capital with climate targets through innovative research and ambitious cross-sector collaborations. James led the development of the Poseidon Principles and was the founding director of RMI’s Center for Climate-Aligned Finance, which delivered the Sustainable Steel Principles, the Sustainable Aluminum Finance Framework, the Pegasus Guidelines, and more. James has also held roles at the University of Oxford Sustainable Finance Group and Carbon War Room.

  • Imogen is a managing associate in Linklaters’ energy and infrastructure team, focusing on project financings in the renewables sector. She joined the firm in 2017, after a 13-year career in the UK civil service. Her experience in government includes customs, border-related matters and EU negotiations; she was the deputy director of contingency operations for the UK Border Force in the Home Office and also the UK policy lead for the EU’s satellite navigation programme (Galileo) at the UK Space Agency.

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    Imogen is a trustee for an education charity and a school governor. She holds a masters in law from the University of Law, and an undergraduate degree from LSE.

  • Chris is a Senior Market Engagement Director with S&P Global Sustainable 1. He represents S&P Global in sustainability leadership, working with key influencers both externally and internally to inform and shape the evolving agenda and strategic opportunities.  Prior to his current role, Chris worked in senior roles at the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C., and at IUCN in Switzerland.  He has an undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences from Durham University and a graduate degree in Management Research from Oxford University’s Said Business School.

  • Clifford is an independent expert advising various international clients on climate and development finance.

    Until recently, he was Resident Adviser to the Alliance for Green Commercial Banks – an initiative of the International Finance Corporation and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to accelerate the green transformation of financial institutions in Asia. Previously, he spent seven years with the Green Climate Fund, where he spearheaded country programming for over 140 developing economies. Earlier in his career, he led research on mainstreaming climate in development finance at the Sustainable Finance Center of the World Resources Institute, USA, and worked on climate finance at the Stockholm Environment Institute US Center where he co-authored the first Handbook of Carbon Offset Programs in 2010.

    Cliff has a Master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, USA, and a Bachelor’s degree from St. Xavier’s College, University of Mumbai, India.

  • Alex is a cross-border structured debt partner at Linklaters LLP in London, with 20 years’ experience of market firsts in the performing and distressed securitisation space. Alex is experienced in the monetisation of non-standard asset classes and financial assets considered more difficult to securitise or repo. Alex leads the ESG structured finance team at Linklaters.

    As part of his volunteer work, Alex was the Chair of the governing body of a Hackney (London) primary school in difficulties and led its turnaround programme. During his eight years as governor, Alex and his colleagues saw the school go from the bottom of Hackney’s exam results table to being in the Top 3 in London

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