Act Beyond Value Chain

Beyond-value-chain actions – actions or investments outside a company’s physical value chain – are needed to mobilize private finance to help deliver societal targets.

Introduced by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), their Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) concept recognizes the need to finance otherwise unviable actions to reach environmental and societal goals (2). Don’t be deterred by the scientific jargon, simply put, BVCM refers to funding climate action globally, while reducing corporate emissions on the journey to net-zero.

Currently, emission reductions achieved beyond the value chain are not included in a company’s GHG inventory (although this may soon change for scope 3), and therefore cannot be used to meet a company’s Net Zero targets. Nevertheless, companies are encouraged to take immediate and consistent action to mitigate emissions beyond their value chains to support global efforts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C (2)

The two main categories of beyond-value-chain actions include nature-based and technological solutions. Both will be explored further in this chapter.

Some examples of different BVCA solutions by type:

The examples given refer only to the types of projects which generate carbon credits.