Introducing GMA Insights

We are excited to launch GMA Insights, an informational series that will delve into important topics surrounding market-based approaches to value chain decarbonization. GMA’s mission to activate new markets for low-carbon fuels and materials is clear, but complex in practice. As we develop and operationalize robust approaches and systems to achieve this mission, many of the considerations informing our work warrant deeper explanation.

GMA Insights will be a forum to explore those topics. Our aim is to bring clarity and transparency to the principles, tools, and techniques that we apply to activating new markets.

GMA works on the leading edge of value chain decarbonization, which means that we are often in uncharted territory. Some concepts that we explore through GMA Insights may be evolving even as we discuss them.  We welcome reflections from the climate community on these topics. If you have thoughts about an insights article, or ideas for a topic that you want us to explore, please reach out at info@gmacenter.org.

Chain of Custody Models

Our first GMA Insights topic will address a fundamental set of tools that GMA applies to our decarbonization programs: chain of custody models. A chain of custody model is defined as an approach to tracking and documenting inputs and outputs of materials through a process or distribution network[1].

Chain of custody models are applied to products that people use and consume every day. Have you bought a piece of fruit that is labeled USDA Organic? A chain of custody model and requirements were applied to maintain appropriate separation of that fruit from non-organic fruit. Have you seen the MSC label on fish or other seafood? Same thing. Have you noticed the FSC Certified stamp on a greeting card or cardboard box? The wood that went into those paper products was tracked – you guessed it – according to a chain of custody model.

There are five general chain of custody models:

• Identity preserved
• Segregated
• Controlled blend
• Mass balance
• Book and claim

Book and Claim Models

Most of the programs that GMA and our partners manage rely on the book and claim model. In a book and claim model, the characteristics (within GMA’s work, the low greenhouse gas emission profile) of a product or service are separated from the product or service itself. These characteristics are assigned to Environmental Attribute Certificates (EACs), which are “booked” in a tracking system such as a registry. The physical product or service itself is then treated as though it were a normal product or service without its low emission characteristics.

A company that is committed to reducing its value chain emissions for the product or service associated with the EAC could buy and “claim,” EACs representing low emission products and services. Purchasing EACs enables the company to support decarbonized products and services, even if the company could not buy the decarbonized products or services in its physical supply chain. See Figure 1. (We will explore additional facets of book and claim and its benefits in a later entry.)

Figure 1

Making Informed Decisions

For organizations considering the use of book and claim systems to decarbonize their value chains, there are many factors to be aware of when assessing whether a system is robust and transparent. That makes it important for organizations to educate themselves about chain of custody models, their benefits, and their limitations.

A core part of GMA’s work is to develop high integrity book and claim systems that support our decarbonization programs. We’ve learned a lot about chains of custody through this work and are happy to share from our experience. The GMA Insights series offers a way for us to explain features of book and claim and other chain of custody models and the implications of their use, with an aim to foster transparency and informed decision-making by organizations purchasing products based on the models.

The next GMA Insight, in which we take a close look at key differences and similarities between book and claim and mass balance models, and the importance of system boundaries for those models, will be published in coming weeks.

[1] Readers interested in detailed definitions of chain of custody models can review ISO Standard 22095:2020, and keep an eye out for the forthcoming ISO Standards 13662 and 13659. We’ve also found National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Publication 1500-206 to be a helpful primer on chain of custody models.

A recent article published by Toronto’s The Globe and Mail highlighted the groundbreaking work of GMA and our partners in standing up buyers alliances and running collective procurements to help decarbonize hard to abate heavy transport and industrial sectors. Innovation reporter Pippa Norman focused in particular on the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA), for whom GMA provides technical support, and the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA), of which GMA is Secretariat. Both alliances have effectively engaged with climate-ambitious global brands to channel new investment to sustainable fuels, starting with SABA’s first-of-kind procurement for sustainable aviation fuel certificates in 2023.

A key takeaway from the article: emissions from sectors like aviation and maritime are not on track to meet 2050 net zero goals, and buyers alliances have an important role in pooling demand to create a clear market signal, connecting shippers and air travelers with nascent low and zero carbon alternatives, and helping accelerate the transition away from carbon intensive fuels.

GMA CEO Kim Carnahan was among the sources quoted in the article, including the following excerpt:

Kim Carnahan, the president and CEO of the Center for Green Market Activation, which works with and operates buyers’ alliances in five different sectors in partnership with non-governmental organizations, said the effectiveness of these groups is evident through the procurements that have been run by SABA, which she also helped found.

In its first procurement, she said, SABA had seven participants, requested 2.5 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel but was only able to facilitate purchases for 850,000 gallons. In its second procurement, it had almost 20 participants, requested 100 million gallons and secured commitments for about 50 million. This year, she estimates, the alliance could hit $1-billion in total investment.

“It’s not enough. The overall aviation market needs vastly more investment. But having increases year on year that are as significant as those is certainly a sign of real progress and a sign that the initiatives we’re running work,” she said.

Ingrid Irigoyen, CEO of ZEMBA, described the process and benefits associated with the buyers alliance model as applied to the maritime sector:

“It’s a way of facilitating or enabling demand from all over the world, regardless of the physical freight flows of the company, aggregating that demand and channeling it into the available best deal solutions,” she said.

The full article is available here.

To learn more about how GMA and our partners are helping implement buyers alliances across a range of heavy transport and industrial sectors, or to explore membership, connect with us.

Carriers invited to respond to first-ever joint procurement that seeks to deploy up to 250 zero-emission trucks

December 17, 2024 (Washington, D.C.) Today, the Center for Green Market Activation (GMA) in partnership with Smart Freight Centre announced the release of a request for proposal (RFP) for zero-emission trucking service attributes through its zero-emissions trucking program, GMA Trucking. The RFP targets the deployment of approximately 250 Class 8 battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell trucks representing up to 14 million miles traveled per year. For context, only 760 new Class 8 zero-emission trucks were put on US roads in 2023.  This pilot initiative represents a first-of-its-kind procurement leveraging a book and claim system to scale adoption of zero-emission heavy-duty trucks and increase access to zero-emission trucking services for companies with ambitious climate targets. The RFP seeks to overcome utilization, infrastructure and market challenges associated with Class 8 zero-emission truck deployment by connecting US carriers with corporate customers ready to take meaningful action to address their road freight emissions.

Zero-emission trucks make up less than 1% of the new medium- and heavy-duty vehicles on the road today. Without demonstrated demand from the market, the trucking industry is likely to remain off track in reducing emissions at the rate needed to meet climate targets.

“This is a very clear, very loud demand signal for any carrier paying attention. Companies want zero-emission trucking services and are willing to make the investments needed to access them,” said Kim Carnahan, GMA CEO.  “This pilot procurement is just the beginning. As with similar buys in aviation and maritime, we expect the second round to eclipse this one many times over.”

Launched in 2023, GMA Trucking works with pioneering trucking customers interested in advancing decarbonization within heavy-duty road transportation through a buyers alliance and book and claim model similar to that used by the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA) and the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA). Over the course of 2024, CarbonLeap, Etsy, Kuehne+Nagel, Netflix, Reckitt, and others have joined previously announced founding members eBay, Green Worldwide Shipping, Meta, PepsiCo, and REI Co-op. Procurement through GMA helps members achieve their “Scope 3,” or value chain climate targets.

Selected carriers will gain a new source of revenue to recapture the higher costs of deploying and operating zero-emission trucks compared to traditional internal combustion vehicles. They will also be able to expand zero-emission trucks to regions and routes where uptake is currently slow or nonexistent.

“Book and claim systems drive greater investment into low carbon transport solutions, and its implementation for zero-emission trucks can channel aggregated demand to innovative road freight carriers” said Christoph Wolff, CEO of Smart Freight Centre. “As with book and claim systems for all transport modes, Smart Freight Centre will ensure that emissions attributes can be calculated, accounted for, and reported in the most robust and transparent way.”

Following the proposal review process, GMA Trucking will facilitate multi-year, bi-lateral contracts between participating members and carriers. Based on the robust projected demand and findings from the RFI conducted earlier in 2024, GMA Trucking anticipates awarding contracts to multiple carriers.

Following the pilot procurement, GMA Trucking plans to run recurring RFP processes to help its members purchase zero-emission trucking service attributes on an ongoing basis and accelerate the decarbonization of the heavy-duty trucking sector, which accounts for more than 3% of global carbon emissions. By demonstrating the demand for these services among corporate buyers, the program seeks to jumpstart the adoption of zero-emission trucks in underserved regions, helping reduce costs as additional supply enters the market.

Carriers interested in reviewing and responding to the RFP may access it on GMA’s website at this link. GMA Trucking will host a webinar for potential RFP respondents on January 17, 2025, at 12PM ET. Those interested in participating in the webinar can register here.

About GMA

The Center for Green Market Activation (GMA) is a US-based, globally focused non-profit. Through innovative book and claim systems, new and creative procurement approaches, and demand aggregating buyers’ alliances, GMA catalyzes and scales the uptake of low-carbon goods and services within carbon intensive industries such as aviation, maritime, trucking, cement and concrete, and chemicals. With collective decades of experience in environmental markets and alternative fuels and materials, GMA works to standardize new, green markets and forges mutually beneficial partnerships between climate-focused companies, suppliers, and mission-aligned non-profit organizations to channel funding to critical climate technologies in pursuit of accelerated sectoral decarbonization. For more information, please visit gmacenter.org.

Media inquiries should be directed to pr@gmacenter.org.

About SFC

The Smart Freight Centre (SFC) is an international non-profit organization focused on helping shippers to decarbonize by standardizing methods for emissions accounting and reporting including transportation-focused book-and-claim systems, as well as supporting shippers to select and implement decarbonization strategies. Its work in book-and-claim systems centers on emissions accounting and reporting, providing guidance in its Voluntary Market Based Measures Accounting Framework as well as its assurance program. In road freight, SFC aggregates demand for electric trucking services in specific regions and use cases, bringing together shippers, logistics providers, and fleet owners towards collaborative partnerships and projects.

As seen in:

TheTrucker.com | December 26, 2024

American Journal of Transportation | December 17, 2024

On Tuesday, September 24, the Center for Green Market Activation (GMA) released details related to its work in chemicals, as part of a Climate Week NYC session hosted by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and Boston Consulting Group. In what marked the official GMA Chemicals program launch, Kim Carnahan, GMA CEO, described the chemicals decarbonization challenge and the approach GMA and its stakeholders are taking to address a sector that contributes more than 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Products from the chemicals sector are found throughout our daily lives, and chemicals emissions are a sizable and growing issue. Decarbonization efforts are being impeded, at least in part, by structural barriers that will require coordinated efforts to overcome. GMA believes that chain of custody and demand aggregation approaches have an important role to play in this work and is excited to embark on a program to gather critical insights to inform subsequent phases of this endeavor – with the ultimate goal of accelerating decarbonization of the chemicals sector while supporting efforts to address the global plastics waste crisis.

GMA Chemicals has been designed to deliver a range of benefits to its participants drawing from the model GMA has already applied successfully in other hard to abate sectors like aviation, maritime, and heavy-duty trucking. More specifically, GMA aims to do the following, in sequence:

• First, build a chain of custody system that enables the transfer of attributes from high integrity decarbonized chemicals to customers willing to pay a premium for a decarbonized product
• Second, develop a buyers alliance for such customers, aggregating their demand and managing joint procurement on their behalf

GMA will also provide education to buyers alliance members and the broader chemicals stakeholder community on GHG accounting and sustainability certification.

To kick off the system development process, GMA is convening a working group of stakeholders from across the chemicals sector – from producers to buyers, standard setters and NGOs – to ensure that diverse views input into our chemicals system design. Our approach is inclusive, working with both legacy chemicals producers as well as start-ups focused on game-changing decarbonized chemicals technologies.

Program design will continue through the remainder of 2024 and into the first part of 2025, after which GMA will shift our efforts from program design to activating the market through our buyers alliance.

Companies who are interested in getting involved should contact chemicals@gmacenter.org.

On Thursday, September 12, 2024, decarbonization leaders Kim Carnahan and Andre de Fontaine (Center for Green Market Activation) along with Ingrid Irigoyen (Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance) hosted their first joint public webinar. The session featured insights into how procurement-focused buyers alliances, such as the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA), ZEMBA, and GMA Trucking are helping companies reduce Scope 3 emissions in hard to abate sectors while catalyzing new markets for low and zero-emission alternatives.  

These member-based organizations pool demand to run collective tenders for the green premium associated with low and zero-emission goods and services, co-develop high-integrity book and claim systems and standardized environmental attribute certificate (EAC) registries, create robust sustainability standards to guide procurements, and help ensure companies can accurately claim and report the impact of their investments in climate solutions. Through this work, they help propel impactful action on Scope 3 emission reductions by channeling investment where it is needed most and driving the decarbonization of value chains where the majority of corporate emissions lie. While the three buyers alliances featured are focused on heavy transport, such alliances are powerful decarbonization tools with cross-sectoral applications to other hard-to-abate sectors such as cement & concrete and chemicals.

Over the course of the webinar, the speakers defined the challenges specific to different sectors when tailoring a buyers alliance approach, the importance of tools like book and claim in the early stages of these sectors’ decarbonization journeys, and the significant opportunity to apply common aspects of successful buyers alliance models such as SABA and ZEMBA to drive and scale industrial decarbonization across heavy industry. The panel outlined specific successes where program participants have been able to achieve collective impact, gain early access to high integrity scope 3 reductions, and benefit from economies of scale for green goods and services.  

The session concluded with an in-depth Q&A that drew on the expertise of the panel, including questions around the evolution of Scope 3 greenhouse gas accounting, current and emerging registries and guidance, and the potential value of a standardized cross-sector platform for the procurement of environmental attribute certificates.  

A recording of the webinar is available by clicking here. 

To stay in the know about future opportunities, follow GMA, SABA and ZEMBA on LinkedIn or sign up to receive updates from GMA and ZEMBA using the links at the bottom of the page!  

Innovative buyers’ alliance applies a proven model to drive the decarbonization of heavy-duty trucking, seeks input from carriers in designing first collective procurement

August 29, 2024 (Washington, DC) – Today, the Center for Green Market Activation (GMA), a US-based, globally focused climate non-profit, announced key milestones for its zero-emissions trucking program, GMA Trucking, that aims to scale adoption of zero-emission heavy-duty trucks.  Founding members of the GMA Trucking buyers’ alliance, which launched in September 2023, include pioneering companies such as PepsiCo, Meta, eBay, REI Co-op, and Green Worldwide Shipping, who are interested in advancing decarbonization within the heavy-duty road transportation sector. Newly released in conjunction with today’s announcement is a request for information (RFI) intended to inform its upcoming procurement process for zero-emission trucking service attributes utilizing a book and claim model. GMA Trucking has also formalized its strategic partnership with the Smart Freight Centre (SFC), an international non-profit organization focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from freight transportation. SFC will bring sector-specific expertise of both road freight decarbonization and book and claim systems to help the buyers’ alliance achieve its objectives.

“Heavy duty trucking accounts for more than 3% of global carbon emissions.  Yet, as in other hard-to-abate sectors, deployment of decarbonized solutions has been painfully slow,” said Kim Carnahan, GMA CEO. “With this announcement, GMA member companies have the opportunity to take demand aggregation where it’s needed most, applying the book and claim model to road freight in order to rapidly accelerate the adoption of zero-emission trucks.”

GMA Trucking and its member companies aim to overcome traditional decarbonization hurdles by utilizing a book and claim system for heavy-duty road transportation attributes similar to those already deployed in other markets, such as renewable electricity certificates (RECs), sustainable aviation fuel certificates (SAFc), and, recently, maritime services. Such systems have proven catalytic to market adoption and acceleration of critical technologies and offer a replicable model to drive the decarbonization of other high-emitting industries.

GMA Trucking is preparing for its first pilot procurement of zero-emission trucking service attributes, a process expected to launch in fall 2024. Targeting preliminary volumes from battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles of up to 110 million ton-miles (or seven million miles with a weighted average payload of 14 tons) per year, the RFP will help GMA Trucking members purchase attributes to make progress towards their greenhouse gas targets and send a strong demand signal to carriers, OEMs, and infrastructure providers to continue investments in zero-emission transportation services. The system will draw from the guidance within SFC’s Market Based Measures (MBM) Framework, a foundational document for logistics book-and-claim that will ensure GMA Trucking aligns with best practices.

“The Smart Freight Centre has been focused on book-and-claim systems for many years because they create the flexibility needed to drive greater investment into low-carbon transportation solutions,” said Christoph Wolff, CEO of Smart Freight Centre. “Our Fleet Electrification Coalition also channels aggregated demand for electric trucking services towards collaborative real-world projects. We look forward to contributing our tools, guidance materials, and expertise to help this program succeed and more rapidly decarbonize the road freight sector.”

To inform the RFP design, GMA Trucking has launched a brief request-for-information (RFI) for carrier responses. The RFI seeks to gather information on existing zero-emission vehicle deployments, interest in expanding ZEV fleets, experience with renewable energy and green fuels, and preferences around multi-year offtake terms. To help those interested in responding to the RFI, GMA has scheduled a webinar for September 17 at 12PM ET to provide further information on the application of book and claim systems for road transportation, how to respond to the RFI, and how to prepare for the RFP.

Through its pilot RFP, GMA expects to select one or more carriers from which to purchase trucking service attributes over a multi-year period. Following the pilot RFP and project contracting, GMA will run recurring RFP processes to help its members purchase zero-emission trucking service attributes on an ongoing basis, growing in scale and scope over time, and helping the road freight sector more rapidly achieve net zero emissions.

Potential respondents who are interested in learning more about the GMA Trucking RFI are encouraged to attend the upcoming webinar. Freight operators are also invited to respond to the RFI by October 11, 2024. More information about GMA and additional cross-sectoral decarbonization opportunities can be found at gmacenter.org or by emailing trucking@gmacenter.org.

About GMA

The Center for Green Market Activation (GMA) is a US-based, globally focused non-profit. Through innovative book and claim systems, new and creative procurement approaches, and demand aggregating buyers’ alliances, GMA catalyzes and scales the uptake of low-carbon goods and services within carbon intensive industries such as aviation, maritime, trucking, cement and concrete, and chemicals. With collective decades of experience in environmental markets and alternative fuels and materials, GMA works to standardize new, green markets and forges mutually beneficial partnerships between climate-focused companies, suppliers, and mission-aligned non-profit organizations to channel funding to critical climate technologies in pursuit of accelerated sectoral decarbonization. For more information, please visit gmacenter.org.

About SFC

The Smart Freight Centre (SFC) is an international non-profit organization focused on helping shippers to decarbonize by standardizing methods for emissions accounting and reporting including transportation-focused book-and-claim systems, as well as supporting shippers to select and implement decarbonization strategies. Its work in book-and-claim systems centers on emissions accounting and reporting, providing guidance in its Voluntary Market Based Measures Accounting Framework as well as its assurance program. In road freight, SFC aggregates demand for electric trucking services in specific regions and use cases, bringing together shippers, logistics providers, and fleet owners towards collaborative partnerships and projects.

As seen in:

The Trucker | September 1, 2024 | GMA seeks industry input on zero-emissions vehicle deployment

DC Velocity | August 30, 2024 | Climate group collects aggregated demand for green trucking

American Journal of Transportation | August 29, 2024 | GMA Trucking Buyers Alliance aggregates demand for zero-emission trucking, in partnership with Smart Freight Centre