DAVOS—Boston Consulting Group (BCG), one of the world’s leading management consulting firms, has expanded its commitment to the First Movers Coalition (FMC) with a pledge to remove 100,000 tonnes of carbon by 2030. BCG’s commitment came at the same time as a group of more than 50 of the world’s largest corporations, with a market cap of more than $8.5 trillion, committed to commercialize emerging clean technologies. FMC partners are making unprecedented advance purchase commitments for near-zero carbon, steel, aluminum, shipping, trucking, and aviation by 2030, as well as advanced carbon dioxide removal technologies.
FMC is a joint effort led by the World Economic Forum in partnership with US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, to drive demand for zero emissions across the value chain of hard-to-abate sectors. The commitments made by FMC members aim to be collectively significant enough to commercialize emerging decarbonization technologies. In addition, the First Movers Coalition will collaborate with supply-side companies in the initiatives sectors to help achieve these commitments.
BCG’s latest pledge to support FMC builds on the commitment made at the FMC launch in November 2021 to partner with air travel operators to replace at least 5% of conventional jet fuel with sustainable aviation fuels that reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by 85% or more when compared with traditional jet fuel, or with zero-carbon emitting technologies, by 2030.
“The growth of the First Movers Coalition is a significant market signal to drive the acceleration of zero-carbon technologies. These technologies are already proven to work, but need to be rapidly scaled to reach our 2050 climate goals,” said Christoph Schweizer, BCG’s global CEO.
“We are also encouraged to see a number of new government partners join FMC. Public and private collaboration is essential to drive faster adoption of the clean technologies we so urgently need,” added Schweizer.
BCG, which serves as the knowledge partner to FMC and has been supporting the Coalition since its early stages last year, has made a commitment in the new Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) sector: BCG will fund technologies that will lead to the removal of 100,000 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere by 2030, and have the potential to store the captured carbon for a minimum of 1,000 years. This CDR commitment is part of the firm’s commitment to achieve Net-Zero climate impact by 2030, and builds on BCG’s recent carbon removal partnerships with Breakthrough Catalyst, Carbon Direct, Climeworks, and most recently, the NextGen CDR Facility announced in Davos yesterday, which has been approved as an implementation partner for the First Mover Coalition.
Several additional members of the Coalition have each promised to remove 50,000 tonnes of carbon. Collectively these commitments will help achieve the global climate goals by accelerating the scale-up of more durable carbon capture technologies which have the potential to reach megatonne scale and store the captured carbon for at least 1,000 years.
US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said, “The purchasing commitments made by the First Movers Coalition represent the highest-leverage climate action that companies can take because creating the early markets to scale advanced technologies materially reduces the whole world’s emissions–not just any company’s own footprint. With today’s expansion, the coalition has achieved scale across the world’s leading companies and support from committed governments around the world to tackle the hardest challenge of the climate crisis: reducing the emissions from the sectors where we don’t yet have the toolkit to replace unabated fossil fuels and swiftly reach net-zero emissions.”
The First Movers Coalition provides opportunities for a wide range of companies to make commitments, take action, and build the clean and profitable supply chains of the future. It also brings together a range of civil society and expert organizations to build momentum, complement ongoing efforts, and input into the initiative's design.
The First Mover Coalition commitments have been developed with support from Design Committee and Expert Members, Primary Implementation Member Breakthrough Energy, and Boston Consulting Group.
For further information, please contact Brian Bannister at +44 7919 393753 or bannister.brian@bcg.com.
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