New York, New York
September 21, 2023
The Advanced and Indirect Mitigation Platform (AIM) launched in February as a hub for removing barriers and coordinating collective climate action in sectors that require extensive transition investment. AIM has since lined up a prestigious expert Governing Committee to oversee the development of guidance on how companies can measure and take credit for emission reductions in their value chain. Today they released their ambitious scope of work as well as announced their first two initiatives – a buyers alliance for heavy duty trucking and an initiative to develop an aggregated funding approach to jumpstart the decarbonization of the mining sector.
Thousands of companies have set science-based or net-zero targets in recent years, including ambitious commitments to tackle scope 3 – or ‘value chain’ – emissions. As companies work toward addressing emissions in the sectors ad a represented in their greenhouse gas inventories, however, they encounter significant barriers. Current GHG accounting and target-setting guidance lacks methods by which companies can credibly calculate and claim reductions from most value chain decarbonization efforts. The AIM Platform was launched in February this year to fill that gap and bring together companies interested in decarbonizing specific value chains. Today we are excited to announce the AIM Platform Governing Committee, its ambitious workplan and AIM’s first two initiatives for advanced decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors.
The Zero-Emission Trucking Alliance (ZETA) will aggregate and deploy customer demand for decarbonized heavy-duty transportation services in order to drive scalable fleet transformation. Thanks to the pioneering work of the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA), the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA), and the ongoing pilot efforts of climate leading trucking customers, ZETA has a clear blueprint for how to design a robust book and claim system for environmental attributes from the transportation sector. ZETA is ready to onboard new members as of today – and plans to finalize its first collective procurement of green hydrogen trucking service attributes for our members by mid-2024.
The Program on Decarbonizing the Mining of Metal and Minerals (D3M) will establish an approach for how customers, including those far downstream, can most effectively contribute to – and indeed drive – decarbonization of metal and mineral commodities. Once the concept is designed, AIM will look to work with key industry players to develop the necessary certification systems that enable customers to credibly claim reductions they support towards their scope 3 targets as well as to partner with mining companies to develop first-of-kind interventions supported by aggregated customer demand.
These two initiatives stand to uproot the trucking and mining sectors as we know them today by designing and implementing programs that allow downstream customers to simply and effectively support their decarbonization. If your organization is interested in learning more about how it can reduce scope 3 emissions from heavy duty road transport or mining of metals and minerals, please reach out to us for an introductory call.
None of this work can scale without the critical accounting, reporting and claiming guidance the AIM Platform was created to develop, however. Today, the AIM Platform is making public our ambitious workplan to finalize the AIM Guidance by Q2 2023, as well as announcing our AIM Governing Committee members – experts chosen from across the private and non-profit sectors, including key standard-setting and environmental advocacy organizations. The Governing Committee is working closely with the Science Based Targets initiative and GHG Protocol, with the goal that its outputs will inform and complement future updates to their respective guidance.
Details on all of the above can be found on the AIM Platform website: www.aimplatform.org.
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About the AIM Platform:
The Advanced and Indirect Mitigation Platform (The AIM Platform) will serve as a hub for removing barriers to ‘value chain’ mitigation and coordinating collective mitigation action in sectors that require extensive investment or technological change to reduce climate impact. Through its inaugural initiative, The AIM Platform will bring together experts from civil society and practitioners from the private sector to develop credible approaches for accounting, reporting and claiming the results of efforts that reduce emissions within a company’s value chain. Established by The Gold Standard, Neoteric Energy and Climate, and the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), it was formally launched at GreenBiz 23 in Scottsdale, Arizona on February 16, 2023.
About C2ES: The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) works to secure a safe and stable climate, by accelerating the global transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and a thriving, just, and resilient economy. Learn more at www.c2es.org.