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The business case for climate investments with Sophie Bruusgaard Jewett │ What goes up must come down, Episode 9
Introduction
In a world of shifting geopolitics and growing climate uncertainty, sustainability professionals are under pressure to keep climate action both relevant and impactful. The conversation is evolving. It is no longer just about ambition, but also embedding sustainability into core business strategies to drive resilience, manage risk, and ensure long-term profitability.
In this episode, Sophie Bruusgaard Jewett, CEO and Co-Founder of Morescrope, and Simon Bager, CIO and Co-Founder of Klimate, explore how climate leadership is adapting to this new reality. Drawing on insights from industry experts and real-world examples, they unpack what it takes to keep climate investments strategic, even in uncertain times.
TL;DR
- The business case for climate investments is evolving; companies need to demonstrate tangible returns.
- Sustainability professionals are increasingly collaborating with CFOs to align climate goals with financial strategy.
- Risk management, resilience, reputation, and relevance are essential frameworks for climate leadership.
- Data-driven approaches and adaptable reporting systems help sustain momentum despite regulatory shifts.
- Small and medium-sized enterprises face unique challenges but can benefit from simplified frameworks (e.g., the EU’s VSME).
Adapting to Uncertainty: A New Era for Climate Leadership
Over the past few years, sustainability was a dominant theme in corporate agendas, fuelled by global movements and supportive legislation. However, recent geopolitical events and political shifts in the EU have altered this landscape. This has led to a “pendulum swing” where climate initiatives are no longer the unquestioned priority they once were.
The role of the sustainability officer is changing from being on the sidelines to working closely with the CFO, presenting a clear business case aligned with company operations. This shift demands that sustainability professionals develop skills in finance and strategic business communication to remain influential within their organisations.
The Four Rs of Climate Strategy: A Framework for Long-Term Impact
A fundamental insight from the discussion is the practical framework built around the “four Rs”: Risk management, Resilience, Reputation, and Relevance. These pillars help translate climate initiatives into strategic imperatives that resonate with leadership and stakeholders.
- Risk management involves identifying and mitigating supply chain vulnerabilities and regulatory risks.
- Resilience relates to preparing the business to thrive in a low-carbon economy.
- Reputation ensures the company remains relevant and trusted to customers, investors, and the public.
- Relevance ties sustainability directly to the company’s core operations and long-term competitiveness.
“Putting your climate work on the shelf right now is a classic sign of short-term thinking. A resilient and robust strategy requires long-term thinking about risk management, resilience, and reputation.”
– Sophie Bruusgaard Jewett, CEO and Co-Founder of Morescrope
The Power of Data and Strategic Integration
Data-driven decision-making is now central to effective climate leadership. Transparent, high-integrity data serves as a reliable anchor, which enables companies to measure impact, build credible business cases, and secure financing. Moreover, companies are increasingly using climate data to create value for customers and investors, leading to more strategic business applications.
Insights for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
While much attention focuses on large corporations, SMEs face similar challenges with fewer resources. Sophie points to the EU’s voluntary reporting framework (VSME) as a practical tool to help smaller companies prepare for future regulatory demands without excessive burden. Though some SMEs may delay action due to uncertainty, the growing expectations from larger supply chain partners mean climate accountability is increasingly unavoidable.
“Companies that dare to invest in climate performance and investments in uncertain times will be the ones that profit the most.”
– Sophie Bruusgaard Jewett
Conclusion
Although today’s climate investment landscape is more challenging and unpredictable, it also offers a valuable chance for sustainability professionals to make climate action a core part of business strategy. To succeed, they need to adapt their skills, focus on long-term goals, and use data to show the real business benefits of their efforts. Companies that stay committed to climate investments, even during uncertain times, will be better positioned to gain a competitive edge in a future where sustainability is closely tied to resilience and long-term value.
How intermediaries drive growth for essential carbon removal pathways.
How can we manage costs while developing diverse removal solutions?
Emerging solutions are essential for a diversified and resilient CDR portfolio. There is no single 'silver bullet' method for carbon removal – each has its own capabilities and limitations that factor into its scaling potential. We must pursue a suite of pathways to fight climate change, including emerging solutions. However, these are often nascent technologies, operating within a broader supporting ecosystem that is still under development. This is evident in the limited pool of entities capable of executing third-party validation and verification audits, as well as the implementation of measuring, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems. While improving quickly, these factors can hinder the roll-out of a project or technology.
It's a real chicken-and-egg problem: early-stage solutions need funding to mature, but high price and limited supporting infrastructure make widespread investment seem both costly and risky. On the other hand, organisations with net-zero targets know they need to purchase diversified CDR to reach net zero, but can pause due to these barriers. As a result, many projects struggle to secure off-takes or investment due to their early-stage status and high price per tonne.
The power of aggregation and intermediation: how 'regular' companies can help scale the market.
While tech giants or large banks can financially support record-breaking CDR purchases on their own and even handle their due diligence and contracting, most companies need alternative approaches. Most entities understand best practices when it comes to carbon removal in Net Zero strategies, but they need support in mitigating price of credits, understanding the broader market complexity, and engaging meaningfully with suppliers.
By working with clients over long-term, multi-year commitments, we can support stronger planning for individual clients. At the same time, we also aggregate their demand with that of other clients, creating a buyer pool to take advantage of particular market opportunities that arise from our dialogue with key project partners, such as InPlanet. This coordinated approach enables us to provide greater certainty to projects and then pass that value back to our clients through risk-mitigated contracting approaches.
For sustainability teams and leads managing complex decarbonisation strategies among many other objectives, procuring a diversified and cost-effective CDR portfolio alone is simply not feasible. Klimate simplifies this process. We help clients build balanced portfolios of vetted projects while selectively providing pre-financing to suppliers, reducing a project’s costs per tonne. Through bulk purchasing, we create direct savings for clients while fostering both a more supportive ecosystem for CDR innovation and price reduction.
A case study in Klimate InPlanet Partnership: innovative Financing & Structuring
Our collaboration with best-in-class carbon removal projects enables us to demonstrate year-on-year how innovative financing structures facilitate scaling. One notable example is our partners at InPlanet, a project developer specializing in Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW).
Enhanced rock weathering, in general, faces several challenges, including:
- High baseline price per ton, especially for near-term credits.
- MRV and certification infrastructure are still in the process of maturing.
- Low availability of spot credits excludes ERW from many "same year" credit portfolios.
Still, ERW is a highly permanent and scalable solution, with broader co-benefits — an essential piece of the climate toolkit.
InPlanet, in particular, is a key leader in the ERW category, with an emphasis on tangible co-benefits for local farmers, high project transparency, and, importantly, certified MRV standards via Isometric. Their approach reinforces trust and integrity in ERW as a carbon removal method.
By aggregating demand from clients with forward-looking net-zero strategies, Klimate can sign multi-year agreements with InPlanet with later delivery timelines, looking forward to 2030. And, pre-financing helps cover the gap between some of the upfront operational costs and the ensuing sequestration timeline, inherent to ERW. The equation of later delivery plus pre-financing results in a lower purchasing price per tonne, lowering barriers to entry and thus strengthening the incentive to act now.
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Why does this financing structure matter to a CDR buyer?
Many companies seek to meet net-zero and SBTi targets by 2030. When purchasing CDR, these goals align with the later delivery timeline of our multi-year commitments. Buyers benefit from a balanced portfolio of carbon removal solutions, featuring both short-term and long-term deliveries while mitigating risk and achieving annual targets in the short term.
That InPlanet has already successfully issued third-party certified credits via Isometric adds to the credibility of the project and also instills confidence that clients can utilise these credits with confidence for neutralisation purposes in their strategy.
How we sustainably scale the market.
When Klimate aggregates demand across various clients, we also identify the right opportunities that strike a balance between risk and benefits. These could be a combination of different delivery timelines, project or technology preferences, voluntary or mandatory frameworks, risk appetites, or connections to broader sustainability objectives.
Mitigating risk across diversified pathways and project developers can also help build confidence across the market, as portfolios and client investments are more stable and secure. One project or pathway that underdelivers or struggles will not mean the entire market suffers. It benefits market health as a whole and allows for prioritising different pathways for different purposes. This is particularly apparent across permanence and delivery timelines, allowing companies to depend on more mature technologies for short-term deliveries while still supporting the growth of others in the long term.
A model that meets the mission
Klimate's model unlocks long-term viability for enhanced weathering, contributing to our mission of accelerating and developing essential pathways while also bringing tangible impacts to the climate and communities. InPlanet has already demonstrated project-level success and has particular credibility from its previous successful issuance of certified credits via Isometric. Partnering with projects like InPlanet enables our clients to benefit from strategic alignment, cost savings, and progress towards decarbonisation. And this growing support signals a mature, scalable pathway for permanent carbon removal — essential for achieving net zero.
The net zero toolkit with Tobias Sørensen | What goes up must come down, Episode 8
TL;DR - key points from the episode.
- Captured CO₂ has multiple uses and multiple pathways worth considering.
- Comparing two pathways, e-fuels and permanent storage (like BECCs & DAC), storage is likely more cost competitive and brings greater benefits.
- Storage breakthroughs in the Nordics build a strong foundation for a cost-competitive future.
- The voluntary market can help build out the infrastructure alongside state-tenders. Still, policy intervention is necessary to scale.
Comparing optimal technology pathways: e-fuels, storage, and aviation
What’s the smartest way to use CO₂ to reach net zero? Tobias shares insights from a recent analysis showing that storing CO₂ is more cost-effective and scalable than converting it into e-fuels. E-fuels, made from green hydrogen and captured CO₂, are promoted as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). But according to the report, Direct Air Capture with Storage (DACCS) delivers the same climate benefit with lower energy use and cost. Since CO₂ is a limited resource, prioritising long-term storage leads to greater system-wide impact. Simon and Tobias discuss the implications of SAF blending–the current EU aviation mandate–and alternatives that deliver equal climate benefit.
“We suggest... that this should be allowed as part of the toolbox when aviation and airline companies are obligated to blend in e-fuel. Let them achieve the same climate benefit by capturing CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing it permanently underground—at a much lower cost.”
— Tobias Sørensen, Concito
Challenges and trade-offs for decarbonisation
Public funding is a limited resource. Considering recent public tenders, Simon and Tobias discuss which pathways to prioritise for a cost-effective toolkit. Important factors considered for effectiveness include operating hours, infrastructure life span, and decarbonisation alternatives. A few stand-outs for optimal carbon capture and permanent storage include cement, waste-to-energy using non-fossil sources (BECCS), and biogas. But, considering the reliance on voluntary purchases today, Simon addresses one challenge of private support: companies choosing certifiable credits over technically-efficient ones.
Another challenge lies in sustainable biomass scaling. With demand across multiple sectors (CDR, materials, hydrogen, biodiversity, food), land reallocation becomes crucial. Tobias suggests reducing meat consumption could support strategies like biochar and reforestation.
Nordic CO₂ Storage Developments
With a few notable storage plants online in the Nordics, more are being explored. These early projects are expensive but essential for de-risking value chains and learning-by-doing. Simon and Tobias highlight the role that onshore storage in Denmark could play, as a cost-effective option when compared to todays price ranges.
Voluntary buyers play a crucial early role but are not sufficient to sustain market growth alone. Wide-spread recognition for carbon storage solutions, whether captured at source or removal, as a highly beneficial and effective solution must continue.
“It’s a tool we have in our climate solutions toolbox. And when we do modelling around the scarce resources we have—the limited economic resources—the cost-effectiveness proves that for certain sectors, even something as expensive as DAC is part of the solution.”
—Simon Bager, Co-founder of Klimate
Implications and Recommendations
Beyond increased traction to removal and storage in voluntary markets, stronger policies are needed to funnel climate finance. Today’s EU ETS and it’s potential inclusion of negative emissions is a step forward to drive adoption. But, current price-levels of removal and storage are misaligned with ETS cost-per-tonne. The market needs contracts for addressing this difference, public-private co-investment, and coordinated procurement strategies.
CDR is not a license to delay reductions but a vital climate tool for hard-to-abate sectors like aviation. Decisions today—on policy, investment, and market design—will shape the effectiveness and equity of future carbon strategies.