Our mission in action: Peatlands protection
in 2023 we officially closed our first programme. We set out to catalyse enabling conditions for ambitious policy change in the EU to protect and restore peatlands. As the Nature Restoration Law (NRL) passed through the legislative process of the European Union, we saw a critical opportunity to give this vital ecosystem the prominence it deserves, and ensure Europe wide targets for its protection and restoration.
Lessons from our peatlands programme
- Delivering a compelling business case depends on finding the right entry point for your target audience: This is especially crucial with nascent or emerging topics. When we began our work on peatlands, we knew the business case for their protection and restoration was lacking and we set about supporting partners to build such a case. For peatlands, finding the right entry point meant looking more widely at nature and biodiversity as a starting point where business was already engaging. By starting with nature restoration, we were able to align our economic arguments on peatlands with existing language, narrative and priorities. We used this to educate our business and investor audiences on peatlands, and push them towards taking specific action. We will continue to look for the right entry points for each audience as we explore future topics.
- The diversity and depth of our partnerships is critical to achieving impact through our work: The success of our work on peatland restoration came from working with partners with deep connections in the policy and business arenas, and the connections we were able to build between these partners to strengthen their individual efforts. By working with a strong coalition in Europe, we were able to advocate for change within the EU Parliament, while our partners’ ability to tap into national-level connections and advocacy efforts tipped the balance in the final days of the discussions. Meanwhile, working with business and investor networks – and forging long-lasting relationships between these organisations and our civil society partners – allowed us to develop a coordinated approach to advocacy which proved critical
Our mission in action: Steel decarbonisation
We set out too accelerate progress towards steel decarbonisation in Asia by driving policy change via commitments by steel buyers and suppliers, and building the national and regional power of civil society to support the transition.
Lessons from our steel programme
- We need to be open-minded and agile about who we work with to achieve impact in different contexts. In India, we have made a concerted effort to ensure the diversity of members of the India Green Steel Network (IGSN) is truly representative of the steel ecosystem, bringing in organisations from the industry value chain, civil society, think tanks, investors and those looking to catalyse investment in this space. A 2024 metric for success is to increase that diversity by ensuring higher representation from industry to further boost the IGSN’s impact and reach. Current IGSN members have expressed how useful it is to be connected to others they otherwise would not have met, working on different angles of the same problem.
- Building power of existing and new partners in civil society and the private sector is essential to achieve policy impact and shifts in investment flows. We need to build power and community, in order to achieve our short term and also longer term goals. We know that the Indian steel ecosystem needs a strong network with an aligned vision in place to continue to drive strategic action domestically and internationally beyond our priority objectives. So while we are always conscious of how best to promote policy impact and shift investment flows to low-carbon solutions, we balance it with supporting and strengthening the work of existing and new partners in the space.
Lessons from across our programmes
Developing a deep understanding of your audience is critical to effective communication and engagement. We explored audience research and message testing to effectively shape and direct our campaigns strategies, identifying the right narratives to drive action, and the best messengers to share our work. We know it is important to meet your stakeholders where they are at and not where you want them to be.
We enhanced our ability to communicate and engage with our audiences by better understanding how they think and what motivates them. We piloted a message testing project in our peatlands programme with much success, and are employing these tools and with other forms of audience and market research for future initiatives.
Building strong analysis, partnerships and teams at national and regional level is critical to ensuring long-term success. We highlighted this in our 2022 report, and committed to experimenting with different approaches. In light of this, we have now committed to strengthening our staff capacity at national and regional level wherever we aim to achieve impact, including in India and now in Indonesia where we are scoping options for 2024 and beyond.
Our priorities for 2024
Our work in Climate Catalyst is to create tipping points in areas where this is needed most, to unlock rapid emissions reductions by 2030. Over the next three years our work will focus on three priority geographies – Europe, India, and Indonesia – stimulating action that will spread to other regions. In 2024 we will focus on steel and aviation, and develop a new area of work in Indonesia.
Our objective is to unlock further action on steel decarbonisation in India by empowering partners through the India Green Steel Network (IGSN) to facilitate demand for low carbon steel, and increase the supply of scrap steel in India.
Our priorities include:
- Build the collective power of the India Green Steel Network to increase public and private sector ambition for steel decarbonisation in India.
- Build demand for low carbon steel through the adoption of green public procurement policies by the Indian Government.
- Facilitate an increase in the supply of domestic scrap steel from ship recycling, with attention to labour, environmental, and human rights concerns.
Our new strategy on aviation has been scoped with leaders in the field, and we are ready for action in 2024. Our work will tackle the communications, financial, and policy barriers to tackling aviation emissions.
Our objective is to increase progress towards short and medium term reductions in aviation emissions by scaling investment into e-fuel production, while we change narratives and spur political will that lay the groundwork for policy, technology and investment enablers towards zero emission flight.
Our priorities are to:
- Empower European civil society to challenge dominant industry narratives preventing regulation, in order to seed an ambitious, fair vision for the future of aviation.
- Build investor engagement and ambition to scale investment into e-fuels production as a stepping stone to zero emission flight.
- Accelerate zero emissions flight technology by unlocking funding and policy enablers.
We identified it as the next country in Asia where our model could be deployed to good effect. Our in-country staff are meeting a wide range of stakeholders to deepen our understanding of progress and challenges, and identify areas where our model could be applied effectively.
Our objective is: to successfully scope, start and secure initial funding to apply our model to a specific issue with a strong and enthusiastic network of partners.
Our priorities are to:
- Ensure that key climate players in the country understand and see the value in our model.
- Build trust and co-create a new strategy in a specific area with clearly defined initial goals.
Explore our annual report below
Explore our work and impact in 2023, the lessons we learnt and how we aim to apply these learnings to help catalyse change in 2024 in more detail below.
