The $17 billion in net zero's missing chapter

illuminem summarises the essential news of the day. In a crucial step for corporate net zero, Gold Standard has opened a new Ongoing Emissions Responsibility (OER) Working Group. Companies with credible climate targets are invited to develop the missing playbook for the emissions they cannot yet cut on the way to net zero and shape the best practices that others will later follow. Register interest in the working group here, or explore illuminem's exclusive coverage below.

Every company on a net-zero pathway keeps emitting while it decarbonises. For years there was no agreed way to account for those ongoing emissions, or to recognise companies that chose to act on them. That is beginning to change. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has now established a basis for recognising how companies address the emissions that remain during the transition. 

Gold Standard, the pioneering certification body founded by WWF in 2003, is setting out to tackle this most awkward of gaps in corporate climate strategy.

This week the organisation invited companies to join a new Ongoing Emissions Responsibility Working Group, convening a small cohort to develop credible approaches for addressing ongoing emissions through climate action beyond their value chains. Rather than debate the principle in the abstract, the group will examine how the challenge shows up inside real corporate portfolios and co-develop the guidance, instruments and case studies that will come to define best practice.

Participants will work through how OER fits within a company's transition plan, how to assemble a credible portfolio of climate action, which instruments and activities may qualify, and how companies can collaborate under the sharing-of-emissions provisions of SBTi's Net Zero Standard 2.0 to deliver impact together. A final strand tackles the reputational question that has held many companies back: how to communicate progress accurately and defensibly, and be recognised for it.

"Our new Ongoing Emissions Responsibility Working Group gives companies the opportunity to shape best practice for a new era of climate action," said Margaret Kim, CEO of Gold Standard. "Working with the Gold Standard experts who helped pioneer the concept and with peers facing similar challenges, participants will help develop a credible pathway for taking responsibility for the emissions that remain during the transition to net zero, directing more finance towards high-impact climate action and enabling companies to be recognised for their contribution."

Gold Standard has been building towards this for some time. It pioneered the underlying research, publishing Funding Beyond Value Chain Mitigation in June 2024 and Ongoing Emissions – Taking Responsibility in June 2026. SBTi has since embedded OER in its Corporate Net Zero Standard 2.0, complete with a recognition programme for participating companies. What the framework still lacks is an established route for a company to determine what qualifies, build an OER approach, and demonstrate it consistently. Closing that gap is the working group's purpose, with the substantive work scheduled through 2027.

Under SBTi's recognition programme, companies decide how much to contribute towards their ongoing emissions, and Gold Standard’s analysis indicates that if firms across the EU and US all gave at the higher "Advanced" tier (applying a US$20 per tonne contribution budget to 10% of their emissions), they would channel some US$17 billion a year into cutting and removing emissions beyond their own operations.

Little of that money moves today, because companies still have no practical way to earn the recognition. Creating that route is the working group's purpose, and those who join now will help write the playbook that everyone else will eventually have to race to match.

Places limited, companies can find out more and register their interest here on Gold Standard.