Staying ahead of the curve.

The newest version of Klimate’s Due Diligence expands on the previous iterations primarily by allowing us to gather more and better quality information. As we push for greater transparency and higher quality of data, this led us to ask more tailored and specific questions, for example, to individual methods.

Carbon removal is a rapidly changing market. Not just in regulatory terms, but the space as a whole, with new technology, certifications, and actors forming all the time. Best practices evolve to reflect new challenges, as shown by the revision of the Oxford Offsetting Principles, which highlights the need for ongoing strategy reviews (notably in Principle 1). We meet these expectations through continual reassessment and realignment to stay ahead of any challenges that may rise out of gaps in the market, thereby creating the market of the future.

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Quality over quantity.

We’ve always worked to have the most stringent analysis and put a lot of effort into leading the market in that way. By releasing this new DD, we are adding on to, rather than discounting, it. Our core DD process remains the same and builds on previous strengths:

• Setting a high bar. It contains compulsory questions and minimum standards. These have been increased, for example requiring internal governance, setting higher expectations for projects to rise to.
• Finding the right projects for our clients. We pride ourselves on having the best projects rather than prioritising quantity. This process of data collections allows us to know the projects well, and better match projects with clients wants and needs.
• Strong market position. We develop relationships throughout the process. Not only can we get better insight on the actual impact taking place, we curate important relationships with key players in the market, setting us up for better access.
  
  
  
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What happens to the scores of already approved projects?

Through raising the bar and setting higher standards for our projects, we understand that this may result in lower scores. We see this as a good thing, as in this changing legislative arena, we need to not just keep up to date, but remain ahead of the curve. In doing so, we mitigate risk of investment for our clients and ensure impact for their investment.

As the market continues to remain under scrutiny, we’re taking an offensive approach to better assess risk. We want to make sure that we work with suppliers that have suitably identified risks and put mitigation measured in place. Part of this is asking better questions, seeking specific data points based on specific methodologies and their related challenges. We recognise that no method is perfect and we’re in a nascent space, which is why we take the initiative to evolve ahead of the curve.

Tracking key changes in our analysis.

To ensure that our due diligence process remains thorough and aligned with certification and legislation, we have updated our assessment on an annual basis. The team started by carrying out a review of the requirements within market standards (such as ICVCM), and certification bodies, as well as the data gathered within our competitors due diligence processes. This allowed us to conduct a gap analysis and ensure that our updated DD remains ahead of market expectations or at least equivalent to best practices.

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The graph above highlights how the number of data points we collect has increased each year, allowing us to gather more detailed information on projects across the 4 parameters we assess.

Launching this version of the due diligence involved the most extensive review we’ve done to date. Some of the changes we’ve implemented are:

• Method specific questions
• Significant increase in questions within Integrity category
• Increased questions on biodiversity, climate adaptation, welfare and land use
• Improved scoring process and approach to question weighting
• Guidance for suppliers, to improve the efficiency of completing the assessment

These are just a few of the key measures we have put in place to raise the bar through our analysis.
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While we are are still hard at work updating scores across all thirty-some projects, we thought now was the right time to let our community know about these changes.

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How we get to gigatonne capacity

Scaling the carbon removal market to gigatonne capacity requires data transparency and trustworthy infrastructure. We pride ourselves on going above and beyond the expectations of integrity and quality in the market, and our due diligence is a key way to accomplish this. As this market develops, continual improvement is necessary to keep pushing for more. Continually raising the bar for carbon removal solutions is the only way we can achieve our common climate goals and solve the massive physical problem of the climate crisis at scale.

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