5. Partner

One of the most effective actions that an organisation can take is to partner with others to advocate for wider systemic, (sectoral collaboration or policy change), for achieving net zero.

As many of the barriers to climate action relate to uncertainties, investment at scale is needed to solve challenges and bring nascent technological solutions into emergent markets. Other climate challenges can’t be tackled in a market competition setting without a policy intervention. If one company bakes in a carbon price to their product they may lose out in a competitive market, while a group of companies acting together can tackle the negative externalities of the emissions associated with their product while keeping quality high and working with the government to keep cost in balance for consumers.

If achieving net zero within a business relies on other actors to make a change, a complete net zero plan must make explicit in what ways achieving the target depends on other actors’ behaviour and consider how to proactively engage with such actors.

This is the final minimum criteria in the Race to (Net) Zero Campaign of the United Nations Framework Committee on Climate Change High Level Champions Team.

In this ‘Partner’ section (and below) are resources and existing coalitions and alliances for partnering to a net zero future.