Establishing an organisation’s baseline carbon footprint (CF) provides the foundations for a quantified approach to emissions reduction. It allows quantitative targets and a trajectory for halving emissions by 2030 to be defined.

1. Secure the commitment of top management from the outset:

• A clear commitment to adopt a quantified emissions reduction target aligned with the Paris Agreement goals should be made by the organisation’s top management. They should make public statements about the adoption of a principles-based approach to effective emissions reduction (see pillar I, Adopting a principles-based approach), reducing the risk of unsubstantiated claims to net zero.
• If top management does not make an early commitment, there is a risk the process will be longer and less ambitious.
• Top management should make it clear the scope of the roadmap includes climate and environment, mitigation and resilience.

2. Launch the project internally, and secure dedicated resources:

• Set up dedicated project governance, including a steering committee and a project sponsor from the management team.
• Nominate a project manager/team and a data focal point to oversee internal mobilisation, coordinating the roadmap development process and data collection across units.
• Consider internal communication to be of key importance during the definition and implementation of the roadmap.
• Be ready to invest resources and maintain commitment over several years. The roadmap development process can take between 9 and 12 months, but the implementation phase is just as important.
• Plan your financial resources in advance: on average, the climate and environmental roadmap costs 0,1% of the organisation’s annual budget over a 7 year period (see pillar IV, Assessing the financial impact).¹⁸

3. State of affairs

Existing projects and actions should be comprehensively mapped early on so that they can be taken into consideration in the roadmap development process.

At this stage, organisations identify a list of relevant solutions that need to be tailored to their specific needs.

The identified solutions are grouped by source of emissions or theme (energy, construction, supply, etc.), and then rated according to feasibility criteria. This can take place in dedicated, thematic workshops involving sustainability managers, thematic/ technical experts and operational teams as/when needed.

Feasibility criteria for rating solutions

• Compatibility with humanitarian missions*
• Carbon reduction impact*
• Conditions for success*
• Human resources required (including skills and positions required)*
• Financial resources required and potential savings generated*
• Environmental footprint reduction impact
• Co-benefits (for the environment, local communities, etc.)

*Key criteria to focus on in the context of a simplified process.

Figure 1: Graph rating solutions based on the level of effort required and the expected benefit in terms of reduced carbon emissions.

High impact solutions should be prioritised (whether they require significant or limited effort):

Fixing objectives and targets

Fixing quantitative targets for each identified solution is a critical step of the roadmap development process.

• Targets should not be considered as performance indicators but rather as practical scenarios for emissions reduction.
• Expressed both in absolute values and in relative terms.

Examples of quantitative targets:

• “Optimise fleet management”: reduce fuel consumption used in land travel by 30%.
• “Fly less and less emissive”: reduce the number of passenger kilometre by 35%
• “Shift from air freight to maritime, road or train”: reallocate 25% of air freight to sea.

Emissions reduction trajectories predict how the solutions identified, and the corresponding targets will allow emissions to be halved by 2030. Trajectories typically include:

• A ‘Business as Usual’ (BasU) projection: a no-action scenario based on the growth of the organisation, from which inflation is deducted.
• Structural Effects (SE), e.g. environmental improvements expected to take place because of the underlying decarbonisation of the world market and energy systems.²⁰
• Expected impact of solutions on emissions reduction

Organisations can use dynamic models, that can be adjusted every 3 years. Key ingredients for establishing trajectories include:

• Growth forecasts both on based the inflation rate and effective growth (corrected for inflation) to define nominal budgets.
• Fixing a reference year for the emissions baseline, from which emissions should be halved. Most of the Climate Action Accelerator’s partners chose either 2019 (for those who started their roadmap development process the earliest) or 2022 (for the most recent ones). The reference year should be decided based on the most up-to-date data available.

To complete an emissions reduction trajectory, the financial viability of the roadmap is analysed using simple financial impact models.

Figure 2: Carbon footprint report and trajectory, 2019 baseline, MSF Operational Center Geneva, co-developed with the Climate Action²¹ Accelerator

• Define implementation (see pillar III, Being a driver of change).
• Identify priority projects.
• Clarify internal roles and responsibilities for roadmap implementation.
• Define the governance set-up for roadmap implementation.
• Establish a timeframe with key implementation milestones.
• Design an appropriate monitoring framework and high-level indicators