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