The Global Network for Zero Selected to Showcase at COP28 in Dubai
Since 1995, The United Nations Conference of Parties, commonly referred to as COP, has cemented itself as the premier forum for international leaders to gather and address the most pressing issue of our time — climate change.
Driven by our mission to accelerate the realization of a zero emissions world, we are honored to announce that Global Network for Zero has been competitively selected alongside 75 other inspiring organizations undertaking meaningful work in the climate space to participate in COP’s ambitious new climate-tech startup village during week one in the Green Zone. All participants in the startup village had to undergo a rigorous third party verified application process with the COP team.
On the heels of our expanding international work with partners and clients across the Middle East, Southeast Asia, the U.S., Europe, Latin America and beyond, members of the GNFZ team will travel to Dubai from November 30 - December 6 to share our vision for accelerating a net zero future, contribute to the urgent and necessary discourse at COP and learn more about the evolving stakes and best practices from our colleagues around the world. We are particularly thrilled to join COP28’s energetic new hub of innovation because a first of its kind climate-tech startup village is the ideal venue to showcase not only our growing global partners but our net zero certifications for businesses and buildings and our world class platform for incremental emissions elimination.
As CEO and President Mahesh Ramanujam puts it, “I believe history will remember 2023 as the year we saw the convergence of political will, market receptivity and groundbreaking technologies needed to accelerate net zero progress. I am excited about what 2024 will bring and am hopeful that the discussions at this year’s COP will not just propel us further to zero, but will also provide a renewed sense of purpose and determination to meet the challenges ahead.”
COP28 has laid out an aspiring agenda for the two week long event, all tying back to themes around technology and innovation, inclusion, frontline communities, and finance. These pillars are integral to GNFZ’s work and guiding principles.
Technology and Innovation
At GNFZ, we are dedicated to eliminating market barriers to decarbonization and bridging the technology gaps currently stifling scalability. Our net zero certification and our platform is based on years of market knowledge gained from green building and sustainability practitioners. When GNFZ was established, we continued these discussions, conducting Q1 2022 independent, in depth public opinion research with policy elites and business leaders. We then analyzed all of the existing standards and certifications in the market to determine the unique value proposition we could bring to the industry to truly accelerate progress.
What we identified was that people felt inundated by the certification programs, technologies and solutions that were available in the market. And what we consistently heard was that what the industry most needed was better ROI to make the business case for net zero – as well as a roadmap they could leverage to get there realistically over time.
The GNFZ platform was developed with this in mind. Instead of simply adding yet another standard, we decided to create a simple, open, flexible, trust-based, and data-driven platform that leveraged the already existing and industry leading GHG Protocol as our default methodology – while also remaining rating system agnostic and open standard, providing flexibility to clients to choose their choose their choice of energy-efficiency or other industry best practice standards or frameworks to decarbonize and achieve certification. Another key feature of the platform is its implementation ecosystem – the platform connects clients with Partners who walk them through the entire certification process, helping them implement best-in-class strategies to accelerate progress towards achieving their net zero goals.
Inclusion & Frontline Communities
At the heart of everything we do is a commitment to people and equity. We take a bottom-up approach to certification instead of a tops-down to realize our goal of “no business or building left behind.” This is done through an incremental approach, where we provide businesses with a roadmap to get to zero; we believe this is necessary to help the industry go beyond legacy, showcase net zero projects, to achieve true scalability and to realize GNFZ’s vision of lasting equitable and living standards serving people and the planet .
Finance
When it comes to pursuing net zero, “all or nothing” approaches have stifled a growing movement to tackle the biggest existential challenge of our lifetimes. The rapidly evolving and dynamic challenges of climate change require affordable options for accelerating to a zero emissions world. GNFZ’s incremental approach to certification enables businesses to put net zero within reach for all – we help businesses navigate their financial challenges to prioritize the strategies they can implement to make progress towards their net zero goals the quickest and with the most impact.
You can learn more about how to get started on your net zero journey with our certification for buildings here and if you are interested in connecting with the team onsite at COP, please reach out to [email protected] or stop by Booth #45 in the start-up village. You can also follow along and get a behind the scenes look at COP28 with the team in Dubai by following GNFZ on X and LinkedIn.
See you at COP28!