MANAGING CLIMATE RISK

We live in an era where a corporate sustainability profile is as important as a credit rating. Globally, corporate regulators require companies to proactively assess, disclose and manage key climate risks in world transitioning rapidly towards a future for net zero and carbon neutral greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

This momentum is unprecedented in both the public and private sectors. There are significant business and liability risks for companies globally as they look for ways to respond to dynamic and continually-evolving regulations and community expectations for climate change.

SUSTAINABILITY PROFILE & ESG

GTE affords businesses of all persuasions the opportunity to improve their sustainability profile
by sponsoring projects that address both GHG and ESG.

The acronym ESG stands for environment, social and governance which refers to a company’s commitment to a high performance, purpose-driven workforce and an inclusive corporate culture that enhances intrinsic company values by achieving positive and ethical business outcomes and objectives.

ESG is often referred to for listed corporations and big business. But in a world of shifting trends, new markets and intense public scrutiny, ESG befits measures by all – small business, non-listed companies and SMEs – that reduce risk; identify new opportunities and apply ethical management structures that disclose opportunities for new products; new services, new customers and new strategic relationships.

GTE & SOIL CARBON

Certain plant species known as C4 species can drawdown, capture and permanently store GHG in the soil for millions of years to restore the natural capital of the land; improve farming and grazing and increase food and water productivity. This source is called soil organic carbon (“soil carbon”).

Many C4 species are Halophytes that can withstand drought, saltwater irrigation and generally phytoremediate marginal and underperforming drylands, plains and seaboards from productive crop outcomes that produce livestock fodder and pellets; nutrient and protein-rich ingredients for food and antioxidants for global wellbeing and health.

Halophytes can also be farmed for biomass and bio-oils for renewable and dispatchable energy. Because they concurrently sequester GHG emissions in the soil that generate carbon credits, the food, fodder and energy outcomes from harvesting are classified as nett negative GHG emissions product – which we refer to as “carbon positive.”

CARBON POSITIVE & Scope 3 Emissions 

Soil carbon is one of only five GHG mitigation measures in the World that generate a carbon positive outcome accepted by the Paris Accord, the United Nations and adopted by Australia’s Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan of 2020.

As emitters work towards mitigating their GHG emissions for zero carbon or emissions neutral outcomes, a new standard is emerging – Scope 3.

Scope 3 emissions are not produced directly by a primary emitter – but generated by a stakeholder in the primary emitter’s network as an indirect consequence of the emissions and assets of the primary emitter – accountable as GHG emissions nonetheless.

As more and more emitters promise to achieve carbon neutral or zero emissions outcomes, more stakeholders’ litigants and vested interest groups will begin to agitate towards combatting Scope 3 GHG emissions. It is incumbent therefore on emitters to turn their attention now towards measures for “carbon positive” which naturally, address Scope 3.

The GTE SOLUTION

GTE applies university researched and globally tested plants and crops that apply Nature’s process of photosynthesis to sequester millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions underground within their deep roots systems and the surrounding soils of marginal and drought and salinity-stricken land – a sequestration factor accredited and monetised as globally tradeable carbon credits.

ATTACHMENT FOR CARBON POSITIVE

Generally, carbon credits are sold at arm’s length to the world-wide carbon market to offset the GHG emissions of a major emitter. The GTE option attaches the carbon credits to the food, feed and energy outcomes to qualify these GTE products and outcomes as carbon positive.

Because the bundled carbon credits produce a carbon positive outcome, this means the customer who buys the product engages in mitigating Scope 3 GHG emissions. There is no certification for the customer – the subject carbon credits remain on the balance sheet of the primary emitter on behalf of its customers as evidence of Scope 3 GHG emissions mitigation.

AFFIRMATIVE CORPORATE ACTION FROM ESG

Cop26 in Glasgow in November 2021 sent the world a powerful message that ESG is the new beneficial base for affirmative corporate action and responsible investing. 

ESG values extend the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) factors of yesterday as the clarion call of today for companies looking to do good by their customers, shareholders, employees, customers and stakeholders by seeking to engage with socially conscious business and organisations, irrespective of their size.

CARBON POSITIVE DISPATCHABLE, RENEWABLE ENERGY

The story gets better in the case of bio-oil extract from GTE species and bioenergy from vegetative biomass grown from GTE crops on otherwise marginal, degraded and non-productive landscape and plains where the GTE methodology empowers a threefold carbon positive result for energy that is:

– Renewable
– Dispatchable, and
– Net of negative GHG emissions (carbon positive).

Unlike renewable energy derived from solar and wind power, renewable energy derived from GTE crops does not need expensive storage measures to overcome inconsistency and unreliability caused by intermittence and thus, is available on demand 24/7.This outcome is especially relevant to industries such as aviation and the built industry where renewable energy inclusion is a practical impossibility.

ESG – EASIER SAID THAN DONE

Achieving ESG can be easier said than done. ESG requires transparent reporting as an effort for the greater good and a collective consciousness for corporate operations and governance – instilling values that define a company’s reputation and its commercial and legal realities.

While providing stakeholders with shared values – shaping corporate practices and public perceptions, this can nonetheless prove challenging as measures and qualitative solutions are discretionary and not codified and can lie beyond the scope and capability of relevant emitters.

Irrespective, ESG builds business resilience and long-term value by requiring transparency and regular reporting to a vast array of stakeholders about a company’s socially responsible practices and its positive impact on the world.

ENHANCING A SUSTAINABILITY PROFILE

GTE projects deliver pivotal action that transition SDGs for their imbuement as ESG within the environmental fabric of corporate stakeholders to elevate their sustainability profile in a manner that is visible, easy to understand, record, assess and report-on – without introducing expensive new systems, methodologies, salaries and on-costs to engage specific personnel and practices to manage an ESG component of the business.

GTE provides solutions for business resilience and long-term value from transparent and regular up-dating of material posted on corporate websites for prominent, easy-to-read, readily available and transparent real-time reports on ESG for the emitter to provide to satisfy the requirements of all manner of stakeholders.

This mechanism catalyses and inspires an approach to ESG that records a company’s socially responsible action – well beyond a litany of motherhood statements and platitudes – that have a positive impact on activity for GTE projects and the collection of 17 interlinked global goals established by the UN in 2015 for the achievement of a sustainable global future by 2030, known as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Watch our video introduction to Greening the Earth below: