However, climate action should not be confined to your operations alone. Businesses can significantly contribute to both local and global efforts to address climate change and biodiversity loss. From hands-on projects like local tree planting to funding international seagrass initiatives, these voluntary investments can strengthen community relationships, engage employees, and enhance brand reputation. We term these initiatives as climate and nature contributions.
Diversify Your Impact
A climate and nature contribution refers to the support provided by a business to various initiatives that address climate change or biodiversity loss outside their operations. These contributions can include traditional methods like certified carbon credits, which aim to prevent additional greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere, as well as local initiatives with broader social benefits. Ambitious companies might also invest in technological advancements in carbon removal or capture, such as Direct Air Capture (DAC) or mineralisation.
Avoiding Greenwashing
Consumers are increasingly aware of businesses using low-quality carbon credits to claim carbon neutrality instead of reducing their own emissions. While investing in impactful international projects remains valuable, it must be coupled with implementing internal carbon reduction solutions and should not claim to neutralise operational emissions.
Investing in Climate and Nature Projects as Part of Your Net Zero Strategy
After measuring your carbon footprint, you might identify hard-to-reduce emissions within your supply chain. Emerging technologies to eliminate these emissions might still be under development. Climate and nature contributions can help bridge this gap, allowing your business to take immediate action while collaborating with suppliers to enhance their own decarbonisation strategies.
By purchasing and retiring carbon credits from a carefully selected portfolio, you are investing in projects like renewable energy, carbon dioxide removal, and other initiatives that accelerate the global transition to a low-carbon future. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) describes this as Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM). Over time, your portfolio should increasingly feature carbon removal projects as you approach your net zero target year. Business leaders should ensure they allocate appropriate funding for carbon removal projects as part of their net zero strategy.
Power the Ecosystem, Scale the Impact
SBTi has published guidance to help companies design and implement BVCM strategies. We recommend engaging a trusted climate contributions partner, such as Flotilla partners, Cloverly, to support the development of your strategy. Cloverly empowers businesses by providing trust, access to internationally accredited schemes, and ease to scale meaningful impact through their platform, which allows you to search projects by type, registry, or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) they support. This is invaluable for businesses that have chosen their SDGs and those seeking to communicate their sustainability story authentically.
Local Solutions, Wider Impact
Businesses also have the opportunity to invest in local climate and nature projects, benefiting the environment while strengthening community ties and boosting employee engagement. Collaborating with environmental organisations on projects like wetland restoration or managed tree planting can create carbon sinks, support local flood prevention, and promote biodiversity by reestablishing habitats for local wildlife.
One example is our partner, Make it Wild, a Yorkshire-based business that restores land to its natural state, allowing native wildlife to thrive. They also offer educational programs and volunteer days, providing employees with opportunities to take personal climate action with tangible outcomes.
How Flotilla Can Help
At Flotilla we combine technology, science-based intellect and expertise to equip businesses with end-to-end solutions that enable them to develop, execute and measure a sustainable strategy that not only makes a difference but makes commercial sense too.
Every organisation we work with is in a different place on their ESG/net zero journey, some more established and others just setting out. Our suite of solutions can be used as standalone applications or as steps in a process designed to guide you every step of the way towards net zero and beyond, including access to our trusted and verified network of partners.
We also provide the tools and expertise to help you clearly and confidently communicate about climate and nature contributions as part of your net zero strategy.
For more information about climate and nature contributions, our partners, or to learn how we can support your efforts, please get in touch.
Book a free demo and consultation here with one of our climate experts.
