New net zero score framework announced

Normative and the Exponential Roadmap Initiative have revealed their ongoing work on a new scoring framework, giving enterprises a scientific, standardised, and comparable way of measuring progress toward net-zero emissions. This will be an open source public framework developed with support from expert advisors from academia and business, including the Exponential Roadmap Initiative, Nordea, and Planet Mark.

“As net zero target dates approach, we will need ways to measure and incentivise the accuracy of data alongside reported progress, or we risk gravely missing the mark on our global goal to limit temperature to 1.5°C,” Says Kaya Axelsson, Policy Engagement Lead at Oxford Net Zero who is advising the project in her personal capacity.

“Corporate emissions reporting is becoming legally required around the world, but there is no standard framework for sharing the crucial information contained in those reports,” says Kristian Rönn, CEO and co-founder of Normative

Legislation in the field is expanding in the UK, US, and EU, and measuring emissions is crucial for enterprises to stay compliant. Emissions measurements also help businesses improve brand equity by validating the results of sustainability work.

To provide businesses with the means to share their progress towards net-zero emissions, Normative is consulting with leading experts in net-zero research, the UN Race to Zero partners, and the private sector. The framework will be first tested by participating partners in early 2023.

At the international climate conference COP27, Normative will kick-start the conversation about the Net Zero Score alongside a wide range of stakeholders.

The score will capture businesses’ current carbon performance in a single number, which is determined based on the accuracy of the data used for the emissions calculations and the business’s progress toward net zero. The score will thus measure the extent to which a business’s yearly reduction efforts are on track to reach the Paris Agreement-aligned target of net zero by 2050. Complementing the work by Oxford Net Zero’s Net Zero Tracker and the UN’s Race to Zero, which assess the qualitative integrity of corporate targets, the Net Zero Score framework will be a tool for investors, customers, researchers, and businesses to evaluate emissions reduction progress in a comparable way. The framework will be open source and publicly available, to encourage wide adoption and full transparency.

The methodology is based on four core principles:

1. Net-zero focus: measurement of progress toward net zero emissions following the Carbon Law principle, according to which emissions need to halve every decade and reach net zero by 2050 at the latest.
2. Completeness: reflects all economic activities across all three scopes defined in the GHG Protocol.
3. Reliability: reflects the reliability of the methods and data sources used to estimate a business’s progress toward net zero.
4. Transparency: the methodology behind the score will be fully transparent and available to all.

Enterprises committed to net zero are invited to reach out to Normative for further conversation.

“Today, businesses report their emissions in different ways, making it difficult to compare their climate performance. The score will make your business’s net zero climate performance comparable in a single score,” Rönn concludes.