Carbon accounting is undergoing quite some changes.

What was once a niche exercise for ESG mandates is now becoming central to how businesses make decisions, communicate value, and manage risk. No longer confined to spreadsheets and annual disclosures, carbon (impact) data is being embedded into everyday business operations; as traceable, auditable, and actionable intelligence.

As Scope 3 emissions dominate enterprise footprints and regulatory requirements get sharper, from India’s BRSR Core to Europe’s CSRD and the SEC’s climate disclosure rules, companies are being forced to answer a simple question: Where is your carbon coming from?

And the companies that are answering that well? 

They’re pulling ahead.

Want to brush up on the basics of GHG accounting? Here’s a detailed primer.

From Reporting to Strategy: The New Role of Carbon Data

Carbon accounting is no longer just a reporting obligation (it never was, according to us), it’s becoming a strategic asset. The shift is visible in how leading companies are embedding carbon data into the fabric of business:

• Microsoft links carbon data with procurement decisions, setting internal carbon prices for suppliers.
• Apple designed a net-zero certified Watch by analysing product-level lifecycle emissions.

• Unilever is piloting product carbon labels, aiming to shift consumer behaviour at point-of-sale.
• Amazon redesigned packaging logistics based on upstream emissions analysis.

What these companies have in common is not just ambition, it’s infrastructure. 

They’re investing in real-time carbon intelligence, not just annual summaries. And in doing so, they’re unlocking value far beyond compliance: operational efficiency, brand trust, investor confidence, and supply chain resilience.

Carbon Intelligence in Action

At Climes, we’re building the infrastructure that enables Indian enterprises to lead in this new climate economy; from APIs that plug into logistics platforms to LCAs that prove product-level impact.

Here’s how some of our partners are applying carbon intelligence at scale:

Wipro: Employee flight emissions

Wipro has long been a sustainability leader, but with air travel emissions spread across global teams, visibility was limited. With Climes, they now track employee flight emissions by route, class, and frequency; giving their ESG team the granularity needed to reduce impact, implement green travel strategy and simplify reporting.

📖 Read the case study

🎥 Watch the episode

MatchLog: Making avoided emissions visible to customers

MatchLog reduces empty container trips through circular logistics. With Climes' Carbon API, they now quantify and share avoided emissions with clients; transforming carbon savings into a measurable, customer-facing value proposition.

📖 Read the case study

🎥 Watch the episode

Varuna Group: Delivering Scope 3 transparency

As a 3PL, Varuna needed to provide its clients with credible emissions data. Climes built a custom API that delivers emissions intelligence directly to their dashboard, enabling Varuna to offer shipment-level carbon reports to their clients, thereby enhancing ESG differentiation and supply chain trust.

📖 Read the case study

🎥 Watch the episode

FreshBus: Proving electric is cleaner, with data

FreshBus needed hard data to support its EV-first intercity model. Climes conducted a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) showing its buses are 71% lower in CO₂e emissions compared to diesel/petrol counterparts — arming the team with validated impact for policy, investors, and the public.

📖 Read the case study

🎥 Watch the episode

Why This Matters Now

Enterprises are entering an era where carbon data must be:

• Operationally integrated
• Real-time and audit-ready
• Decision-driving

Companies that embed carbon intelligence into their logistics, procurement, product development, and internal governance are already seeing returns; from cost savings and risk reduction to better investor alignment and consumer trust.

As McKinsey puts it, “Carbon transparency will soon be expected across the full product lifecycle. Early movers will set the standards and the terms of competition.”

Final Thought

Carbon accounting used to be about disclosure. Now, it’s about direction.

The future belongs to companies that treat carbon like they treat capital: tracked rigorously, reported transparently, and optimised continuously. 

👋 Ready to get started?

If you’re looking to build operational visibility, simplify ESG reporting, or unlock Scope 3 intelligence — we’d love to talk. Let’s explore what your carbon data can do.

Loyalty programs used to be the holy grail of customer retention.

Swipe, earn, redeem. Rinse, repeat.

But somewhere between the 100th coffee stamp and the never-ending ‘expiring soon’ air miles, customers started asking: Is this really worth it?

For many, it wasn’t.

Today’s consumers—especially Gen Z and Millennials—are driving a new era of loyalty. Some (boomers) might argue that these younger generations don’t even know what loyalty is. As millennials, we’d say: we do — but only when we actually see the value, and when that value shows up consistently. Not just as a one-off gimmick to win us over.

All in all, we value loyalty that’s not just transactional, but transformational. 

The Loyalty Shake-Up

Loyalty programs are everywhere. From supermarkets to streaming services, brands are desperate to keep customers coming back. But the game is changing.

• 72% of consumers are part of at least one loyalty program.
• Yet, 53% say those programs don’t feel rewarding anymore. (Source: Arktic Fox)

Why the disengagement?

Traditional programs are showing their cracks:

• Too complicated. Ever tried redeeming airline miles without a PhD in fine print?
• Too same-same. Everyone’s offering 10% off and free shipping. It’s all… meh.
• Too discount-heavy. Constant markdowns dilute brand value and train customers to wait for the next deal.

Customers today crave more than perks—they want instant gratification, a reward that’s tangible, a reward they can experience, a reward they can brag about. 

Enter: Sustainable Rewards

Sustainable (or green) rewards flip the script. Instead of handing out plastic pens or pointless points, brands are now offering climate action as currency - that’s purpose, experience and gratification all at once! 

Picture this: You buy a product, and instead of earning a coupon, you fund the restoration of a mangrove forest. Or offset the emissions of your parcel delivery (like how Tamarind Chutney does). That’s the new loyalty lexicon.

Why it works:

• 83% of Gen Z expect brands to take a stand on environmental issues.
• Nearly 60% of Millennials are willing to pay more for eco-friendly options. (Source: Growave)

Why Green Loyalty Works (Psychologically Speaking)

Sustainable rewards appeal to emotional loyalty, not just habitual behavior.

• Emotional Engagement: When customers feel like they’re doing good, they associate that goodness with your brand.
• Social Identity: People want to be seen as conscious consumers. Giving them a platform to act on it? That’s powerful branding.

It’s Maslow’s hierarchy meets Mastercard.  

And here’s the kicker — it’s not just good for the planet or your people. It’s great for business.

• Brands that prioritise social good grow 37% faster than those that don’t.
• Activating customers through climate-positive actions builds real, measurable engagement. (See how an international bank did it)

What Can Make a Sustainable Rewards Program Stick?

Design. 

Design is the differentiator that can separate climate champions from the murky landscape of greenwashers.

✅ Design for Transparency

Tell people exactly what their actions are funding. No vague “we plant trees.” Show locations, images, partners, farmers plating those trees, and easy-to-understand impact reports.

🎯 Design for Ownership

Let customers choose which climate project they support. Tree planting in Meghalaya? Clean cookstoves in Kenya? The choice gives them the sense of pride and impact ownership.

🔄 Design for Seamlessness

Don’t make customers jump through digital hoops. Rewards should be seamless—tied to actions they already take, like online purchases, credit card swipes, or ordering a croissant online.

🤝 Design for Partnerships

Work with credible environmental organizations (like, ahem, Climes) to ensure your impact is verifiable and verified. 

🧠Design for Behavioral Change

Design rewards to nudge behavior and break old patterns by pairing them with smart incentives. 

Case in Point: An International Bank x Climes

In one of the coolest loyalty pivots yet, An international bank teamed up with Climes to introduce sustainable rewards for their customers.

💸 Any of their new customers made an 2 FX transactions, they earned 200 Climes—units of climate action they could use to fund real, verified carbon projects. At Climes, we believe in actions that are small enough to do, but big enough to matter.

Those 200 Climes? That’s the climate equivalent of charging 16,169 phones.

🎯 Instead of hoarding points for a branded pen, customers were offsetting emissions. That’s what we call emotional ROI.

Show Me the Numbers: Proving ROI

Sustainable rewards aren’t just a feel-good tactic—they make business sense.

• Customer Retention: Programs with emotional engagement outperform others by 27%.
• Brand Affinity: 91% of consumers are more likely to trust brands that support a good cause.
• Environmental ROI: Brands can quantify their customer-led climate action—hello, annual impact reports.

So… What’s the Future of Loyalty?

It’s clear.

Points are passé. Purpose is powerful.

As climate awareness grows and regulations tighten, integrating sustainable rewards isn't just trendy—it’s future-proofing your brand.

And with a suite of products like that of Climes, it’s never been easier to make climate action part of the customer experience. One click, one reward, one carbon credit at a time.

Ready to turn customer loyalty into climate impact?

Let's build the kind of brand your customers—and the planet—can stick with. Reach out to us at support@climes.io to design a loyalty program with the right sustainable rewards.

In global logistics, efficiency is everything — yet one of the biggest inefficiencies is often ignored: the return trip.

Every day, thousands of shipping containers, trucks, and rail cars move goods across vast distances, only to return empty. These return journeys consume fuel, generate emissions, and occupy capacity — without moving a single unit of cargo. 

In the container logistics industry, this practice is referred to as "empty repositioning." It’s expensive, emissions-intensive, and largely invisible in climate reporting.

In India alone, it’s estimated that 25–30% of all container truck trips are empty. Globally, more than 100 million container movements per year are empty repositioning trips. These non-value-adding trips contribute significantly to the logistics sector's carbon footprint — yet they rarely show up in emissions audits or ESG disclosures.

For a sector responsible for more than 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, this is a critical blind spot.

Why Traditional Carbon Accounting Doesn’t Work Here

The logistics industry has traditionally focused on calculating actual emissions — how much CO₂ is emitted during a trip, based on fuel consumption, distance, and mode of transport.

But what about the trips that didn’t happen?

What about the emissions we avoided?

There’s immense untapped potential in quantifying the emissions avoided by reducing or eliminating unnecessary transport. These avoided emissions aren’t just good for the environment — they represent cost savings, operational efficiency, and a powerful climate narrative for logistics providers.

The challenge?

Avoided emissions are harder to track, and even harder to validate — unless you have the right data, methodology, and tech infrastructure.

The Climes Approach: Measuring What Didn't Happen

At Climes, we’ve built a carbon intelligence engine that can track both actual and avoided emissions — using real-time operational data, mode-specific emissions factors, and validated baseline scenarios.

In the logistics sector, this means we can:

• Track emissions from truck, rail, and ship movement, trip by trip
• Model a “business-as-usual” baseline for return trips
• Quantify avoided emissions per container when empty repositioning is reduced or eliminated
• Deliver trip-level data that is auditable, API-integrated, and usable across ESG, investor, and client communication

This is carbon accounting built not just for compliance — but for climate leadership.

From Invisible Cost to Visible Impact: The MatchLog Case

One of the most compelling use cases of this approach is our partnership with MatchLog, India’s leading container reuse platform.

By reusing import containers for export directly, MatchLog eliminates the need for thousands of empty return trips. Working with Climes, they were able to quantify over 41,000 tonnes of CO₂ avoided, standardise their emissions reporting, and enhance their ESG credibility with trip-level climate data.

📖 Read the full case study here.

And if you’d like to hear the full story straight from the source — MatchLog’s co-founder, Dhruv, joined us on The Voice of Gen-C podcast to unpack the scale of the problem, how they’re tackling it from the inside, and how working with Climes has brought more credibility and clarity to their sustainability value proposition.

🎧 Listen to the podcast below:

Avoided Emissions Are the Next Frontier in Climate Accounting

We believe that measuring what didn’t happen is just as important as what did.

As supply chains digitise and carbon transparency becomes a business imperative, avoided emissions will play a critical role in decarbonisation strategies across logistics, mobility, energy, and beyond.

At Climes, we’re building the infrastructure to make this measurable, verifiable, and actionable — so that companies don’t just offset emissions, but actually reduce them. 

If you’re a logistics leader looking to make your emissions count — and your avoided emissions matter — get a free carbon assessment from Climes and see what you’ve been missing.

The road to net zero is full of promises—but not all carbon removal solutions are built to last. Without trust, verification, and durability, carbon markets risk becoming ineffective. That’s where Puro.earth steps in.

In the latest episode of The Voice of Gen-C, Alvin Lee, Head of Supply at Puro.earth, breaks down how registries play a crucial role in ensuring that high-quality, engineered carbon removal is scaled with integrity.

Why Does This Matter?

Not all carbon credits are created equal. Many focus on emission avoidance rather than actual carbon removal—but to truly reach net zero, we need to take carbon out of the atmosphere and store it permanently.

That’s exactly what Puro.earth does. As the world’s first registry focused solely on engineered carbon removal (CDR), it sets rigorous standards for projects that lock away carbon for 100+ years, ensuring measurable, long-term impact.

What’s Inside This Episode?

This conversation dives into the evolving landscape of carbon removal and the critical role of registries in bringing credibility and scale to the market. Key takeaways include:

✅ The five methodologies Puro.earth supports – from biochar to enhanced rock weathering and the next 3 they are planning to include

✅ Why durability is non-negotiable – and why 100+ years is the gold standard for CDR

✅ How registries help scale solutions by fast-tracking credit issuance and unlocking capital

✅ The future of high-integrity carbon markets – and what’s coming next for CDR innovation

Scaling Carbon Removal at Speed

One of the biggest challenges in carbon markets has been bottlenecks in verification and credit issuance—slowing down the adoption of much-needed climate solutions. Puro.earth is tackling this head-on by ensuring that projects get verified and scaled faster without compromising on quality.

With new methodologies in the pipeline and growing global interest in CDR, the next decade will define whether carbon removal succeeds at scale.

If you’re serious about real climate impact—not just corporate pledges—this episode is a must-listen.

For many companies, sustainability is a goal. For Wipro, it’s a way of doing business.

With a 20+ year ESG journey, Wipro has been one of India’s earliest corporate sustainability champions—long before net-zero targets became the norm. But unlike companies that make just broad commitments, Wipro has taken a measured, data-driven approach to embed sustainability across its operations.

That’s exactly what we explored in our latest episode of The Voice of Gen-C, where we sat down with Radhica Kanniganti, ESG Leader at Wipro, to unpack how the company has built a long-term, high-impact sustainability strategy—and what other enterprises can learn from it.

What Makes Wipro’s Approach Stand Out?

• ✅ 82% renewable energy adoption across campuses—on track to hit 100% before 2030
• ✅ Granular carbon data tracking to make business travel more sustainable
• ✅ Strong governance & board-level supervision on ESG progress
• ✅ A focus on long-term sustainability investments, not short-term PR wins

Instead of treating sustainability as an added cost, Wipro has integrated it as a business advantage—one that drives efficiency, resilience, and long-term profitability.

Inside the Episode:

• 💡 How Wipro’s sustainability journey evolved over 20+ years
• ⚡ Why ESG is no longer an expense, but a business advantage
• 📊 How enterprises can use data to drive meaningful climate action
• 🏗️ The role of leadership in making sustainability a core strategy

Wipro isn’t just setting net-zero goals—they’re proving that large enterprises can lead the way in real, systemic climate action.

If you’re a business leader, ESG professional, or sustainability advocate, this conversation is one you can’t afford to miss.

🎧 Listen to the full episode below

Reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is rapidly becoming a global mandate, with governments introducing stricter regulations to combat climate change across the world. At the same time, individuals are increasingly prioritizing greener choices, influencing markets and brands alike. As a result, more companies are embracing net-zero goals with an ambition to achieve them by 2050.

Now, the first step for anyone—whether you're an individual or a business—is understanding the emissions you generate, which helps build a solid foundation for meaningful climate action.

That’s why this guide (Carbon Accounting 101) delves into GHG carbon accounting’s essential concepts, methodologies, advantages, and best practices, offering the insights needed for a business or even an individual to start their transformative sustainability journey. 

What is Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Accounting?

Greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting, also known as carbon accounting, is a method for businesses and organizations to measure and track the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their activities, operations, and value chains. It helps them understand their environmental impact.

By systematically measuring and quantifying GHG emissions, companies can benchmark their performance, ensure regulatory compliance, and set achievable reduction goals.

This comprehensive process empowers businesses to assess their carbon footprint and align their strategies with globally recognized sustainability standards, fostering accountability and transparency. 

A few of the main Greenhouse Gases contributing to climate change are:

• Carbon Dioxide (CO2) - Primarily produced by the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas), as well as through deforestation and industrial processes like cement production.
• Methane (CH4) - Released during the extraction and transport of fossil fuels (natural gas and oil), agricultural activities (especially from livestock), landfills, and wastewater treatment.
• Nitrous Oxide (N2O) - Mainly emitted from agricultural activities, particularly from the use of synthetic fertilizers
• Fluorinated Gases (HFCs, PFCs, SF6) - These synthetic gases are primarily used in industrial applications such as refrigeration, and air conditioning, and as solvents in manufacturing processes.

Understanding the types of GHGs is just the beginning. To truly grasp the full impact of your emissions and take effective action, it is crucial to categorize them. This is where the concept of Emission Scopes—Scopes 1, 2, and 3—comes into play.

Scopes of Emissions

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (one of the frameworks to measure GHG emissions) categorizes emissions into three scopes to ensure clarity and comprehensiveness in accounting processes:

1. Scope 1️⃣: Direct emissions originating from owned or controlled sources, such as company vehicles and on-site fuel combustion.
2. Scope 2️⃣: Indirect emissions resulting from purchased electricity, heat, or steam, reflecting the energy usage of an organization.
3. Scope 3️⃣: A broader category encompassing all other indirect emissions within the value chain, including supplier activities and product usage. 

Now that you understand a great deal about Greenhouse gas emissions and accounting, let’s take a quick second to understand why GHG accounting is important.

Importance of GHG Accounting

The primary objectives of GHG accounting are to:

🌱Gain a clear understanding of an organization’s carbon footprint.

🌱Identify strategic opportunities for emissions reduction.

🌱Manage any possible risks associated with evolving sustainability regulations

🌱Foster transparency and credibility with stakeholders, investors, and customers.

🌱Ensure alignment with evolving sustainability regulations and industry frameworks.

Having understood the need to keep an eye on your GHG emissions, let’s try and understand how one can get started with Carbon Accounting or Greenhouse Gas Accounting.

How to Get Started with Carbon Accounting

Embarking on your carbon accounting journey involves several key steps:

1. Assess Current Emissions: Conduct a thorough baseline assessment across all scopes to establish a starting point.
2. Implement Standards: Align with globally recognized frameworks like the Greenhouse Gas Protocol to ensure credibility.
3. Engage Stakeholders: Foster collaboration and education among internal teams, suppliers, and partners.

We’ve already glimpsed into different sources of emissions, now let’s understand the nuances behind gathering and managing data, methodologies and frameworks of carbon accounting and reporting.

Data Collection and Reporting

Accurate data collection and transparent reporting are critical in carbon accounting to quantify emissions reliably, track progress over time, and build trust with stakeholders through actionable and verifiable insights.

Data Collection

1. Activity Data: Quantifiable inputs like fuel consumption, electricity usage, raw material inputs, and travel distances.
2. Emission Factors: Standardized coefficients (e.g., kg CO2e per kWh) to calculate emissions from activity data.
3. Scope Categorization: Data is segmented by Scope 1 (direct emissions), Scope 2 (indirect energy emissions), and Scope 3 (value chain emissions).
4. Temporal Boundaries: Ensure data is collected for a consistent time frame (e.g., annually) to align with reporting cycles.
5. Data Sources: Use verified primary data (e.g., utility bills, meter readings) whenever possible; secondary data (e.g., industry averages) is a fallback.
6. Granularity: Gather data at the most granular level feasible to enhance accuracy (e.g., by site or process).

Data Reporting

1. Accuracy: Use verified methodologies like the Greenhouse Gas Protocol or ISO 14064 to ensure emissions are reported reliably.
2. Transparency: Disclose assumptions, data sources, and calculation methodologies.
3. Consistency: Follow consistent reporting standards year-on-year to track progress effectively.
4. Materiality: Focus on reporting emissions that are significant to the organization’s overall footprint.
5. Verification: Engage third-party audits for independent validation of reported emissions data.
6. Scope Breakdown: Report emissions by individual scopes to provide detailed insights into direct and indirect emissions.

Standards and Frameworks of Carbon Accounting

Adherence to established standards enhances the reliability and comparability of GHG accounting. Key frameworks include:

1. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol: The most extensively used and trusted standard for emissions measurement and reporting.

2. ISO 14064 and ISO14067: This standard offers specific requirements for quantifying and reporting GHG emissions at organizational and product levels. ISO 14067 focuses on product carbon footprints.

3. PAS 2050: A globally recognized standard for assessing the carbon footprint of products and services throughout their entire lifecycle

Implementing these frameworks ensures consistency, credibility, and transparency in emissions reporting and sustainability initiatives.

Benefits of GHG Accounting / Carbon Accounting

Incorporating Greenhouse Gas (GHG) accounting into business operations offers numerous benefits:

1. Regulatory Compliance: Helps meet national and international emission regulations, avoiding penalties and ensuring alignment with legal mandates.
2. Enhanced Reputation: Demonstrates commitment to sustainability, improving brand image and fostering trust with stakeholders.
3. Strategic Decision-Making: Provides insights into emission hotspots, enabling informed strategies for efficiency and cost reduction.
4. Risk Mitigation: Identifies potential climate-related risks in operations and supply chains, allowing proactive management.
5. Cost Savings: Identifying inefficiencies can lead to reduced energy and resource consumption, cutting operational costs.
6. Competitive Edge: Opens opportunities for green financing, partnerships, and access to environmentally focused markets.

These benefits make GHG accounting an essential tool for driving meaningful climate action and long-term organizational success.

What’s Trending in 2025  in GHG Accounting?

🔥 The landscape of carbon accounting is rapidly evolving, with several noteworthy trends:

1. Sector-Specific Decarbonization: Industries with high emissions, such as manufacturing and logistics, are adopting tailored strategies to curb their carbon footprints.

2. Carbon Offsetting and Credits: Growing interest in leveraging offsets to achieve carbon neutrality while supporting global climate initiatives.

3. Technology Integration: Emerging tools and AI-driven solutions are revolutionizing the accuracy and efficiency of emissions reporting.

🌍 In today’s sustainability-driven world, carbon accounting is not just a regulatory requirement but a business imperative. By adopting reliable methodologies, adhering to trusted standards, and prioritizing transparency, organizations can transform environmental responsibility into a significant competitive edge. GHG accounting not only mitigates risks but also fosters innovation, efficiency, and long-term value creation. 

FAQs

1. Is there a difference between GHG accounting and carbon assessment?

   - Yes, GHG accounting encompasses all greenhouse gases, while carbon assessments may focus specifically on CO2.

2. Can GHG accounting mitigate global warming?

   - Indirectly, as it provides the actionable insights necessary to reduce emissions effectively.

3. How often should carbon accounting be conducted?

   - Annually, with more frequent evaluations recommended for high-impact industries like fossil fuel, real estate, and such.

4. What are carbon credits and offsets?

   - These mechanisms balance emissions by investing in environmental projects that sequester or reduce GHGs.

5. Can small businesses implement carbon accounting effectively?

   - Absolutely, using streamlined tools and simplified methodologies designed for smaller-scale operations. 

Biochar isn’t new—but its role in solving the climate crisis is finally getting the recognition it deserves.

For centuries, biochar was used to enhance soil health, improve agricultural yields, and sequester carbon but never at scale to create much impact. But today, it’s emerging as one of the most scalable and permanent carbon removal solutions we have.

In the latest episode of The Voice of Gen-C, we sit down with Flo Oberhofer, MD of PyroCCS India, to explore how biochar is being reimagined for the carbon removal era—and why it could be a game-changer for the planet.

Why Biochar, and Why Now?

With the world racing toward net-zero targets, the need for high-integrity carbon removal has never been more urgent. Carbon avoidance alone won’t cut it—we need solutions that physically remove CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it away for centuries.

Despite its potential, biochar has remained a niche solution—until now. Companies like PyroCCS are scaling biochar production at an exciting rate, making it a key player in the future of engineered carbon removal.

Inside the Episode: The Future of Biochar & PyroCCS’ Scaling Vision

🔥 Why biochar—an age-old process—is gaining renewed attention today
🏗️ How PyroCCS is scaling to deploy 400+ biochar plants in the near future
🌍 The role of carbon markets in funding high-integrity CDR solutions
💡Why biochar is a win-win for both carbon sequestration and soil health

The carbon removal market is evolving fast, and biochar is proving to be one of the most durable, verifiable, and scalable solutions in the space.

Want to understand why biochar is finally getting the spotlight it deserves?

🎧 Listen to the full episode below:

We are building Climes with the intent to make climate action accessible, impactful, and transparent. Our first and most widely distributed product, Climes Credit, simplifies the math behind carbon neutralization for brands and enterprises.

When we launched, 1 Clime was priced at Re. 1, which neutralises 1 kg CO2e by funding a high-quality climate project. So, if you were a brand looking to neutralise 5 kg CO2e with us, we'd give you 5 Climes Credits to fund the climate project (s) of your choice across the Global South.

At this price, we were able to finance carbon projects at a price ceiling of ~$12/tonne, which mostly included carbon avoidance projects like renewable energy, waste-to-energy, and clean cookstoves.

Over time, we raised the price to Rs. 2 per Clime which enabled us to finance projects at a ceiling of ~$17/tonne today. This includes a mix of carbon avoidance and removal projects like Regen agriculture, afforestation, reforestation, waste-to-energy, and more.

Looking ahead, we plan incremental price adjustments to support premium carbon projects like mangroves, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and enhanced rock weathering, targeting payouts of $85–$100/tonne.

From now on, all Climes sold in India will be priced at Rs. 2 or higher, as we onboard more high-quality, verified carbon projects across the Global South and beyond!

Why does this matter?

Firstly, we want to stay true to our commitment to transparency—ensuring that every Clime you purchase supports high-quality, traceable projects with measurable climate impact. Secondly, by adjusting our pricing, we unlock access to premium carbon projects that often remain underfunded, enabling impactful, verifiable, and enduring CO₂ removal.

In 2023, Nexus Group of Malls & Brands, one of India’s leading retail chains, embarked on a mission to plant 7,500 trees as part of their CSR initiative. To amplify this impact, they partnered with Acacia and Climes, transforming the launch of their ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) report into an interactive and customer-driven campaign. Rather than adopting a passive approach, Nexus Group involved mall-goers in selecting where the trees would be planted across India in a unique blend of Climes LITE & Events, making sustainability a collective effort.

Tackled Challenge

Nexus Group faced two major challenges in making its sustainability efforts visible and engaging:

• Customer Engagement with ESG Reporting: Sustainability reports are crucial but often fail to engage consumers meaningfully. Nexus needed an innovative way to capture attention and align customers with their sustainability initiatives.
• Maximising CSR Impact: The allocation of CSR funds in India has traditionally leaned heavily towards sectors like healthcare and education, with sustainability initiatives receiving a comparatively smaller share of the total expenditure. As per RBI's data, while CSR spending has grown at a CAGR of 17.3% since 2014-15, the proportion directed towards environmental sustainability remains minimal. Nexus sought to challenge this norm by directing its CSR funds toward visible, impactful climate initiatives, ensuring transparency and compliance while creating measurable environmental benefits.

Bringing Visibility to Deployment of CSR Capital

Step 1: Building Knowledge through Customer Interaction

Nexus Group introduced sustainability as a shared responsibility by creating awareness among mall-goers about their tree-planting initiative. Upon entering any of the 17 Nexus Group across India, customers encountered prominent signage encouraging participation in the sustainability initiative. By scanning a QR code available at multiple touch points, including entrances, escalators, and food courts, customers could engage effortlessly.

Step 2: Shaping Intent through Collective Decision-Making

The QR code led mall visitors to an interactive voting experience, where they selected one of several reforestation sites funded by Nexus’ CSR. This step fostered a sense of ownership and intent. By enabling individuals to align their choices with their values, the initiative transformed awareness into a desire to act.

Step 3: Driving Action with Transparency

Once participants cast their votes, they were redirected to Nexus Select Trust’s Sustainability Report, where they explored the company’s broader ESG efforts. This reinforced their understanding of the direct connection between their actions and Nexus’ impact.

Step 4: Showcasing Impact in Real-Time

Climes’ platform tracked, in real-time, the number of participants voting for tree planting, enabling Nexus to provide live progress updates through digital displays and in-mall screens. By closing the loop with measurable outcomes, the initiative empowered participants with a sense of accomplishment, hopefully furthering sustainable behaviour in their daily lives.

Unlocking CSR for Community-Driven Climate Action

Nexus Group’s innovative use of CSR funds, combined with Climes’ interactive technology, sets a powerful precedent for customer engagement in sustainability. By giving customers a choice in where trees were planted, Nexus Group brought a traditionally behind-the-scenes process into the spotlight, while making their ESG reporting more accessible and transparent. This initiative also ensured proper tax compliance, with funds allocated in line with regulatory requirements, providing both financial transparency and sustainability impact.

This case also highlights that sustainability is not just the responsibility of corporations but a collective effort and showcased a new approach where CSR turned from a top-down corporate responsibility into a grassroots movement that encouraged community-wide participation.

A win-win-win scenario:

• For Nexus Group: Boosted customer engagement, visibility for their ESG efforts, and a stronger sustainability reputation.
• For Customers: Empowered them to actively contribute to climate action.
• For the Environment: 7,500 trees planted, aiding carbon sequestration and local land restoration.

Learning from the Journey

While the initiative successfully planted 7,500 trees and demonstrated a unique way of integrating CSR with customer engagement, there were valuable lessons along the way:

1. Lower-than-Anticipated Customer Engagement: Despite the creative approach, the number of participants who scanned the QR code and voted fell short of expectations. Factors such as awareness levels, the time required for participation, and competing distractions within the mall environment could have impacted engagement.
2. Limited Reach Beyond Mall Visitors: The initiative primarily engaged those physically present at the malls. Expanding its reach to digital audiences could offer a promising opportunity for future iterations.

Nonetheless, this collaboration was a significant step toward making climate action mainstream. While there is still progress to be made, this pilot has laid the groundwork for exciting opportunities to responsibly deploy more and more CSR funds into climate action.

Ready to be a part of the change? Let’s turn your CSR funds into powerful climate action through engaging, transparent initiatives. Reach out to us at support@climes.io now to learn more.

A global IT enterprise partnered with Climes to measure carbon emissions from their employee flights.

Employee travel emissions represent a significant, yet often underestimated, contributor to a company’s carbon footprint. As this global IT enterprise aims for net-zero GHG emissions by 2040, this collaboration with Climes marks a crucial step in assessing its environmental impact and implementing data-driven, sustainable strategies.

Through this carbon accounting exercise, the company is gaining valuable insights and actively engaging and educating every employee to be a part of their carbon footprint reduction efforts.

Navigating Carbon Accounting Challenges of Large-Scale Enterprises

Traditional carbon accounting relies on manual data collection and processing, which might lead to higher costs and a lack of speed and scale in execution. It usually takes between 4 and 20 weeks, depending on the complexity of the business and the level of data available; for most engagements, the timeframe is 10-12 weeks. Such timelines and long processes have made climate action slow and complex for most enterprises to even take the first step.

To address this, a “slice and dice” approach—analysing data in segments such as travel emissions or other operations—enables enterprises to isolate specific challenges, making carbon accounting more manageable and actionable.

The IT services provider sought a streamlined, accurate system to calculate employee flight emissions quarterly.

However, with thousands of their employees travelling domestically and internationally, we needed to find a way to manage & automate the processing of large volumes of data and account for various aspects of flights, such as routes, origins, layovers, and more.

Climes Custom Solution

Climes developed a custom model to handle large-scale data input and calculate carbon emissions efficiently. By analyzing flights’ origin, destination, and type, the solution provided:

• Accurate carbon emissions based on flight data
• Detailed insights organized by employee, function, and region
• A significant reduction in processing time
• At 1/3rd the cost compared to traditional methods

Behind the scenes: The working model was built within a few weeks and was scaled to process vast quantities of data in less than 3 days.

Impact

• This global IT enterprise’s emissions data, organized by region, function, and employee, provided insights into high-emission areas, helping them identify where reductions could be made and what couldn’t be reduced would later be neutralised.
• By addressing a commonly overlooked emissions area, this partnership has significantly reduced time and costs.
• The transparency and detailed reporting offered by Climes allowed the global IT enterprise to make greener choices regarding their travel policies and carbon management.

Lastly, with this carbon accounting exercise, the global IT enterprise is not just addressing a corporate sustainability goal—they’re engaging multiple departments and employees in taking climate-positive actions.

While this global IT enterprise focuses on achieving carbon reductions to the last mile, the following strategies are some suggestions from the Climes team that can serve as a guide for enterprises aiming to adopt greener operations. 

These efforts can significantly lower emissions and, when reductions have been maximised, enterprises can turn to neutralisation methods for residual emissions. 

Greener Choices for Enterprises

1. Encourage Virtual Meetings: Limit travel by promoting remote collaboration.
2. Flexible Workspaces: Implement alternative working days to optimise resource use.
3. Promote Energy-Efficient Transportation: Encourage public transport, carpooling, and electric vehicles.
4. Invest in Green Building Practices: Focus on energy-efficient office spaces.
5. Sustainable Procurement: Choose eco-friendly products across the value chain to reduce carbon footprints.
6. Reduce Air Travel: Favor direct flights to minimise emissions.

Neutralising Emissions

1. Offsetting Residual Emissions: Direct funds to verified, high-impact carbon offset projects through Climes.

1. Carbon Insetting: Reduce emissions in the supply chain by investing in renewable energy and efficiency technologies.
2. Investing in a Greener Tomorrow: Support long-term projects like nature-based solutions and carbon capture technologies.

Start your carbon accounting journey today and unlock actionable insights—partner with Climes to start your path to net zero—learn more at www.climes.io.

In June 2021, we founded Climes with a clear vision: to accelerate the flow of finance into Climate Action. Over the past three years, we've had the privilege of engaging with a diverse range of stakeholders across the climate ecosystem, including customers, brands, enterprises, climate financiers, and project developers. These ongoing interactions have been instrumental in shaping and refining our solutions.

With a goal to facilitate capital flow from enterprises, brands and individuals into climate projects, we developed our innovative products. However, as we built our offerings, we recognized a significant gap—a shortage of high-quality projects in India that met our standards for transparency, permanence, and additionality. To address this, we began originating our nature-based projects, setting a new benchmark in the process.

Over the past year, we've tested and refined both of these solutions with various stakeholders. Through this process, we identified an exciting opportunity to offer them independently, empowering us to build leaner teams, deliver focused messaging, and amplify our impact by optimizing capital efficiency across all fronts. Moving forward, Climes, led by Anirudh Gupta, will continue to develop accessible and engaging tech-enabled products for enterprises and brands to discover and offset carbon emissions and direct funds to a diverse range of climate projects across the world. Equilibrium, led by Siddhanth Jayaram, will focus on originating carbon removal solutions in the Global South by channelling both commercial and concessional capital from enterprises, carbon financiers, and impact institutions.

The past couple of years have been an incredible journey filled with valuable lessons, significant wins, and a few setbacks. We are deeply grateful for the unwavering support and trust we've received from our investors, advisors, customers, team members, and project partners throughout this journey. We carry forward the majority of our partners, investors and team into both these businesses. Siddhanth and Anirudh will continue to be shareholders, mentors and the biggest cheerleaders for both Climes and Equilibrium. Even as our teams take different paths, we are refreshed, refocused and re-energised to address the next set of challenges and drive growth. 

We're three years in, but 1st December 2024 is Day 1 for both Climes and Equilibrium. We're building both institutions to become long-lasting, and profitable, in line with the original vision of accelerating the flow of finance into Climate Action. 

You can reach out to us at ani@climes.io or sid@equilibriumearth.com for more information.

Best, 

Anirudh Gupta & Siddhanth Jayaram

Reflecting on the conversations that unfolded during the Futures Summit on the 16th and 17th of October in both Delhi and Darjeeling, one clear theme emerged:

the climate solutions we need are already here, but unlocking capital and moving it quickly is the missing piece.

The summit, hosted by Alt Carbon, brought together a diverse group of thinkers—climate finance experts, carbon project developers, and policy leaders—under one roof. What struck us the most was the growing understanding that climate change isn’t just an environmental problem, but fundamentally a financial challenge. We need to change the narrative to ensure capital moves with speed, targeting the projects that will make the biggest difference.

Capital and Climate: A Global Disparity

Climate is all set to enable the biggest shift of resources and capital from the Global North to the Global South— i.e. to the countries most at risk from climate change. Yet, we’re still grappling with how to make that happen.

These countries cannot be expected to compromise their development agendas for climate action. What’s needed is a balance: development and climate action must go hand-in-hand. That balance, however, depends heavily on the flow of capital from already developed nations to those still developing.

We’ve long known that climate finance is necessary, but the mechanisms to move money effectively and efficiently remain underdeveloped. This summit brought to light a simple truth: the solutions exist, but the capital hasn’t followed suit. As the ex-bank CEO of JP Morgan Chase Bank, India, P.D. Singh mentioned concepts like Green Bank and other innovative financial products could be pivotal in addressing this issue—ensuring that climate finance is not just accessible, but that it reaches the right places with minimal friction.

Carbon Project Development: The Next Frontier

The summit illuminated the emerging opportunities in carbon project development—particularly in the realm of engineered carbon removal solutions like biochar, carbon capture, and enhanced rock weathering (ERW). These engineered solutions provide more predictable results, making them attractive for large-scale deployment.

The discussion underscored a critical point: we can’t rely solely on nature-based solutions anymore. While projects like agroforestry and regenerative agriculture remain important, the future lies in engineered solutions that can scale to meet the massive carbon removal targets we face.

However, one of the challenges that is persistently on project developers’ minds: who is going to buy these credits? Project developers, especially those in emerging markets, continue to face uncertainty around the financing of their projects. The question of demand—"Where is my buyer?"—was echoed repeatedly during the summit. Without a robust buyer network, a growing demand and secure financing, these projects may never reach the scale needed to make a significant impact.

Beyond Carbon: The Ripple Effect of Climate Finance

Another key takeaway was the growing understanding that climate finance is about more than just carbon credits.

The societal benefits that stem from carbon removal projects—whether through job creation, biodiversity restoration, or social equity—are immense.

This is an area that is often overlooked but should be an integral part of how we think about climate action.

As Shirish Sankhe aptly pointed out in his discussion on Decarbonizing India, it’s not just about removing carbon from the atmosphere; it’s about creating a system where climate action drives prosperity, productivity, and employment. India, with its vast resources and rapidly growing economy, has a unique opportunity to demonstrate how climate action can be woven into the fabric of national development.

The Path Forward: Building a Global Network of Project Developers

In our view, the biggest challenge we face is scale. We need hundreds of millions of climate projects running across the world, in every zip code—from major industrial sites to small, local community efforts. The good news is that more and more project developers are entering the space, but they need support. They need buyers, they need capital, and they need infrastructure to succeed.

For companies like Climes, this is where we can make a difference. Our role is to build the climate finance infrastructure that makes it easy for enterprises, institutions, and individuals to measure, manage, and act on their carbon impact. We are in the business of enabling climate action at scale—by ensuring that the capital moves to the right projects, at the right time, and with the transparency needed to ensure long-term impact.

2024 will be a turning point, as we push toward gigaton-scale carbon removal. But we need to move quickly.

The clock is ticking, and we can no longer afford to wait for slow cycles of capital deployment.

The future is now—and it’s in our hands.

Nature is a gift we have received in abundance. And largely for free. There are few things of value in the world that fall into the same category of plentiful, universally loved, and which come at a low cost. Yet, we have never been able to price nature. Without pricing it, we will never understand how to truly value it and the collective efforts that are needed to preserve it. So, how do we design this better?

This is the problem carbon markets have sought to address. Here is an opportunity to turn an unfolding “tragedy of the commons” into a “victory of the commons.” And in doing so, incentivize further financial and human capital into the development and preservation of more nature-based projects. However, for several reasons, we’re not yet where we need to be. Quality of projects, transparency of capital flow, accountability of stakeholders involved, and volumes of capital unlocked - all fall extremely short of what the planet needs to have a shot at a cleaner, fairer, better, and more resource-efficient future.

The added turmoil from hard-hitting, investigative, and factual stories published in 2023 by The Guardian, The New Yorker, John Oliver, and DownToEarth has only compounded the general skepticism about the market-based systems built for carbon financing over the last 15 years. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

More spotlight and harder questions from unshakable journalists and discerning end buyers of carbon credits will only serve to identify still-existent gaps, and bad actors, and improve the overall system.

This is how we will build healthier incentive systems to close the massive climate finance gap. Three steps forward, and one step back. Sometimes two. And that’s okay. Net-net, we are now on the cusp of what I like to call  “carbon markets 3.0.” Drastically improved, cleaner, healthier, and more aligned with the building of a truly regenerative global economy.

Of all available solutions, Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are the key to driving large-scale planetary impact. Nature has already given us a buffet of effective solutions to choose from - agroforestry, regenerative agriculture, mangrove plantations, seaweed and kelp, wetland restoration, and so on. No R&D, and no time-to-market-readiness problems. The problem we do have to solve for now is incentivizing large-scale NBS project financing and development across the globe, particularly in the global south.

Here are 3 moves that we feel are lining up to play out in the evolved and improved “carbon markets 3.0.”

1.  Clear segmentation of carbon projects within

2. Growing wave of interest in NBS

A growing wave of interest in NBS, following companies like Apple and Mars. Nature-based project development has massive potential across solutions and geographies, at cost curves that make sense.  It also creates environmental, social, and economic impact that justifies every additional dollar spent on a corporate balance sheet.

3. Move away from the spot-trading market

A move away from the spot-trading market towards more long-term pre-financing arrangements for captive NBS carbon project development- similar to the captive power plant development model. End buyers are becoming more interested in seeing the project solve their residual carbon emissions over the next decade or two, and having it become a part of their value chain. Trust in unknown developers building and selling credits from a faceless project is at an all-time low, and rightly so. Long-term pre-financing of large-scale projects that solve for the end users of those credits, is an opportunity waiting to explode.

Over the last 15 years, carbon markets have grown and shrunk many times over. And with each cycle, they have gotten closer to the truth of the model we need for our planet. Today, the voluntary carbon market remains our most viable channel for funding carbon removal and avoidance projects that will be essential for reaching the Paris climate goals. 2023 and beyond will emerge as the single best time this century to be building high-quality NBS projects that can solve climate change, at the speed and scale we collectively need.

Get in touch with us to know more about financing high-quality nature-based solutions and to explore potential collaborations: carbon-finance@climes.io

Understanding “high-quality” carbon credits from an Indian lens

The quest for high-quality carbon credits in India is like a game of chess, where every move counts.

The quality of a project is less about one particular aspect and more about the interaction of multiple moving parts - because even one small drawback can impact the credibility of the whole.

Designing a high-quality project means understanding the details and risks of each stage in a project’s lifecycle and making sure they’re accounted for - with no room for error.

The infographic below highlights the six key features of a carbon project.

Finally, there are two overarching realities to keep in mind when designing a high-quality project:

1. To an extent, the definition of project quality will be subjective.
   It is important to always keep financiers and stakeholders in the loop so that you are all aligned on how that quality is being defined. And make judgement calls with your buyer’s expectations in mind.
2. Methodologies will keep updating.
   As science progresses and develops better ways to monitor and quantify emissions - methodologies will change too. On average, you can expect them to update every 1-3 years depending on the sector. See this as an advantage rather than a disadvantage - more updates mean more accuracy.

Nature as a critical climate solution | Nature4Climate

The new Nature4Climate report busts the most-frequently cited myths around nature-based solutions and natural climate solutions.

Nature4Climate -Mariana Ceccon

S&C Publication: Treasury Department Releases Principles for Net-Zero Financing and Investment

On September 19, 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released nine principles for net-zero financing and investment by financial institutions.

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

Lowercarbon Capital Raises $550 Million For Two New Climate Funds

In this latest round Lowercarbon Capital has raised a total of $550 million that will be ditributed in two funds. One will be for new additions to the portfolio, while another will be used to fuel the growth of companies already on the roster.

Carbon HeraldVasil Velev

Climes on LinkedIn: #naturebasedsolutions #climateaction #carbonremoval #sustainability

On the way up to the Himalayas, one can’t help but notice and admire the large areas of pine trees. But little do they know that these beautiful monocultural…

LinkedInClimes

Yash Verma from our team will be speaking at The Social Town Talk Series: International Carbon Conference. He aims to shed some light on how corporates can navigate through residual emissions by sharing our experience of talking to 50+ corporations across various projects in the last 2 years.

Link to register

Climes on LinkedIn: #climateweeknyc #naturebasedsolutions #naturalclimatesolutions…

It was an honour to be able to witness changemakers from all around the world come together at #ClimateWeekNYC last week. We were so heartened to see interest…

LinkedInClimes

It’s been an eventful few quarters for the Carbon Market industry. The year began with a watershed article from the Guardian calling out REDD+ credits for being worthless, “phantom credits”. This set off somewhat of a chain reaction, with the ICVCM later releasing revised guidelines for the assessment of credits and introducing a Core Carbon Principles (CCP) label; followed by VERRA also choosing to revise its VCS standard. All this to say that the “quality of credits” has been the hot topic of conversation for 2023.

Chasing high-quality credits has been described as “searching for buried treasure without a map”. The comparison is especially true, given the rise of nature-based (NBS) and community-focused credits in the market. Previously popular energy credits are more commoditised and have pre-defined project designs. NBS and community-driven credits, on the other hand, involve far more marginal stakeholders and present more potential for impact. They offer more freedom to design a high-quality project, but navigating their complexities is proving challenging for most players in the industry.

In an ideal world, buyers would know exactly what a high-quality project entails and would demand the same from suppliers - who would respond in kind. However, the industry is so nascent that there is a glaring lack of understanding of what needs to happen for a project to be considered “high-quality”. This is especially true in India, where we (Climes) have spent the last couple of years working on originating high-quality credits.

Below is a summary of our learnings, compiled to paint a close-to-accurate picture on what it takes to design a high-quality carbon project in this region.

India - the land of a billion stories, flavours and well, carbon emissions.

Let’s take a step back.

At a fundamental level - carbon credit projects are about infrastructure change. Each sector in India, be it agriculture, energy or transport etc, must transition to more sustainable systems if they want to maintain the pace at which they are industrialising. In many cases, this green shift can be incentivised via financial instruments like carbon credits.

Furthermore, because India is so massive, fast-moving, and geologically, culturally and economically diverse - it provides myriad opportunities for the development of large-scale carbon credit projects that lead to genuine impact.

The infographic below highlights some of the key advantages that make India ripe for large-scale carbon project development.

Not only is it important for us to leverage carbon credits as a tool to incentivise a green transition and build more sustainable infrastructure across all sectors - we have the opportunity to do this at scale using the natural anatomy of our country. In the last decade, India exported around 15-20% of the total VCM credits issued worldwide. This means a viable system for implementation is already in place, what remains is using it to generate better quality credits that create meaningful impact.

Understanding “high-quality” carbon credits from an Indian lens

The quest for high-quality carbon credits in India is like a game of chess, where every move counts. The quality of a project is less about one particular aspect and more about the interaction of multiple moving parts - because even one small drawback can impact the credibility of the whole. Designing a high-quality project means understanding the details and risks of each stage in a project’s lifecycle and making sure they’re accounted for - with no room for error.

The infographic below highlights the six key features of a carbon project.

Setting up a high quality project

Now, onto the main event. Most key decisions and structuring will take place in years 0-2, however attention to detail is paramount throughout the project’s lifecycle. Critical considerations for each phase of a high-quality project are listed below:

Phase 1: Project design & feasibility

• Choosing the right registry & methodology: Carefully pick a methodology that fits the location and stakeholders you’re operating with and qualifies for relevant eligibility criteria. It’s important to get each minute detail correct.
• Additionality: Justifying additionality cannot be a one-time exercise. It’s important to stay abreast of changes (e.g. policy) that can impact the credibility of your claim. For example, the Haryana govt. introducing financial incentives for avoiding crop residue burning, would jeopardise the additionality claims of any related projects that started in the last 1-2 years.
• Baselines - the dark horse: Time must be spent making sure baselines are carefully defined. Tools like geospatial imagery can be used to support your claims but each farmer must be given individual consideration and sweeping generalisations should be avoided.
• Levers for scale - from day 1: Ensure that you have options or partnerships with credible parties across the supply chain, so that the ability to scale is not jeopardised later due to unwanted dependencies.

Phase 2: Pilots, Quantification and Buyers

• Quantification: Because nature is fundamentally hard to model, scientific justifications of your quantification methods become important. Often the lack of public data and related investment present a big challenge, due to which many project developers end up investing in research themselves.
• Access to upfront finance & buyers: Most nature based solutions require high upfront capital expenditure. A high quality project would have locked-in capital ready for deployment.
• Pilots: It is critical to demonstrate confidence in your proposed project impact via results from small scale pilots, in similar conditions.

Phase 3: Implementation, Audits and Issuance

• Benefit sharing: Benefit sharing is often found in project structures, but can fail during execution - it is one of the harder pieces to get right. A high-quality project needs to have systems in place to make sure benefits are distributed effectively and fairly.
• Keeping up-to-date with the standards: Methodologies will always keep updating. Staying up-to-date & even pre-empting revisions of standards and methodologies is crucial.
• Heavy attention to detail for audits: One minor sentence or error in the eligibility criteria can lead to questions on the entire project.

Finally, there are two overarching realities to keep in mind when designing a high-quality project:

1. To an extent, the definition of project quality will be subjective.
   It is important to always keep financiers and stakeholders in the loop so that you are all aligned on how that quality is being defined. And make judgement calls with your buyer’s expectations in mind.
2. Methodologies will keep updating.
   As science progresses and develops better ways to monitor and quantify emissions - methodologies will change too. On average, you can expect them to update every 1-3 years depending on the sector. See this as an advantage rather than a disadvantage - more updates mean more accuracy.

How we ensure quality at Climes:

Climes is a climate-finance company building the infrastructure for designated as well as non-designated climate capital to flow to high-quality climate action on the ground. We leverage science-based Digital-MRV solutions, strong working relationships with large-scale implementation partners and program structures which keep smallholder farmers at the centre of the finance flow to originate high-quality, nature-based carbon projects in India.

Our current portfolio and pipeline of farmers extends to nearly 250k smallholder farmers in ~600k acres of land.

Get in touch with us to know more about financing high-quality nature-based solutions and to explore potential collaborations: supply@climes.io