Gold Standard, a nonprofit which manages best practice standards for climate and sustainable development interventions, has joined forces with environmental impact platform Milkywire and soon-to-be-launched arts charity Murmur on helping companies implement “beyond value chain mitigation” (BVCM) strategies.
BVCM refers to mitigation action or investments that fall outside of a company’s value chain. The BVCM program by Gold Standard in partnership with Milkywire and Murmur will provide operational principles, processes, and guidelines so that corporate players can fairly and credibly take responsibility for their emissions, beyond purchasing carbon credits.
The tools will also be available to funds and other players in the carbon markets as they prepare project and portfolio proposals aimed at offering credible climate action, according to a joint statement by the partners.
Gold Standard will have a leading role in the consortium and will be responsible for the overall coordination of the activities, while the other two partners will provide expertise and support as needed. Milkywire and Murmur will also take part in the development and testing of operational principles, processes, and guidelines.
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The consortium will also work with other partners and stakeholders, including external expert groups.
“Our collaboration will provide guidance and standardisation for companies to become credible contributors to global net zero,” Gold Standard’s CTO, Owen Hewlett, said in a comment.
Robert Höglund, Climate advisor at Milkywire, added: “Leading companies are already transitioning away from the former approach of merely offsetting emissions and proclaiming carbon neutrality.”
The guidance created by the consortium will focus on topics such as commitments that companies should make before engaging with BVCM, appropriate costing approaches, for example adopting an internal carbon fee, activity categories companies could invest in to achieve climate impact, investment criteria and possible impact measurements, and what companies may claim from using a BVCM strategy.
Gold Standard and its partners will seek to build upon and complement existing BVCM guidance by fellow nonprofit Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) by further operationalizing it.
Read more: Milkywire Adds Spotify And Klarna To Its Climate Transformation Fund
