Climate Action for Business
Issued by
University of Colorado Boulder
Climate Action for Business equips leaders with an approach to engage with key stakeholders, develop meaningful climate action strategies, and account for and plan to reduce carbon emissions. Learners are conversant in the vocabulary, frameworks and models that are essential for effective climate action, and equipped to lead their organizations through a complete climate strategy. Successful participants create a Climate Action Plan tailored specifically to their company and industry.
- Time Days
- Cost Paid
Skills
Earning Criteria
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Stakeholder Engagement and Collaboration: Engage employees on climate action; Create pathways for every job to be a climate job; Embed climate justice in every aspect of your plan; Ensure the board is climate-competent; Engage and support local communities.
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Emissions Reductions: Accelerate goals, include interim targets, and phase out use of offsets; address supply chain and historical emissions; Institutionalize emissions reduction efforts; Use carbon removal technology as a last resort and only for unavoidable emissions
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Products, Partnerships, and Procurement: Ensure products and partnerships don’t serve bad climate actors; Require suppliers to adopt science-based emissions reductions targets; Prioritize circularity and low carbon materials
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Investments and Financing: Offer employees climate-friendly retirement plans and investment opportunities; Push banks and asset managers to align investments with the Paris Agreement; Pressure insurance companies to stop underwriting and investing in carbon-intensive projects
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Climate Disclosures: Publicly disclose climate-related risk and support mandatory disclosure standards; Use standardized reporting frameworks such as TCFD and CDP
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Climate Policy Advocacy: Use influence to advocate for climate policy at all levels of government; Align political contributions; Focus lobbying dollars on just climate solutions; Push trade associations to align
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Business Model Transformation: Embed climate considerations into every part of the business; Focus business model on scaling climate solutions, phase out parts of the business that are incompatible
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Long-Term Thinking: Value long-term thinking over short-term profit and prioritize building a just climate future for all
Standards
The Drawdown Framework for Climate Solutions identifies 3 areas of action necessary to achieve Drawdown, the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline.