San Francisco, CA (September 24, 2024) — The Change Climate Project (TCCP) today announced the launch of the 2025 version of its certification Standard, and debuted The Climate Label, a major evolution of the nonprofit’s established climate action certification program. Since 2019, TCCP has motivated thousands of businesses to accelerate climate action and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The newly launched Standard and Label will take effect beginning in 2025. The evolution centers climate transition funding as a critical component of every company’s journey to net zero. Certified companies will use The Climate Label in their marketing to signify third party validation of their climate initiatives. Consumers that rely on The Climate Label’s predecessor, Climate Neutral Certified, will use the new label to identify preferable products and services.
TCCP’s multi-year, stakeholder-driven effort to develop the new framework incorporated recent lessons from across the climate movement. The 2025 Standard will accelerate corporate climate investment at a scale and pace that matches the urgency of the climate crisis. Voluntary corporate action can address persistent gaps in climate finance if more companies set an internal carbon fee and fund GHG reduction projects within and outside their supply chains.
Notably, the 2025 Standard takes a more inclusive approach to climate finance, carving out the need for investments both within and beyond a company’s operations and supply chain. To foster trust, certified companies must disclose, in addition to their annual GHG emissions, details about their reduction plans, transition spending, and the funding of carbon credits and other market-based instruments.
“Most corporate climate targets are still not backed by the requisite funding to meet them. Meanwhile, people continue to struggle to distinguish honest corporate climate action from greenwashing,” said Austin Whitman, CEO and co-founder of TCCP. “We are confident that the updated Standard will bring about much needed progress and clarity in the corporate climate movement.”
Leaders in climate and sustainability from NGOs and companies, together with consumers, provided over a thousand comments on successive versions of the 2025 Standard and updated label. The framework builds on the important work of other corporate climate initiatives including the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP), the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), and the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), as well as many emergent templates for climate transition planning and reporting.
“How companies actually invest in climate action matters more than aspirational pledges. The transparency at the heart of The Change Climate Project’s approach can help ensure that climate goals and promises are backed by the progress we need to see in this decisive decade,” shares Elizabeth Strucken, Managing Director at the Environmental Defense Fund.
As part of the development process, TCCP also underwent detailed beta testing of the draft framework with over a dozen companies to ensure its efficacy and integrity. This set of corporate climate leaders, which includes outdoor retailer REI, successfully met the 2025 Standard criteria and are the first to earn The Climate Label certification.
”We’ve been proud to partner with Change Climate over the last several years to help elevate REI’s climate strategy and bring much-needed tools and guidance to the industry,” shares Greg Gausewitz, Senior Manager of Product Sustainability. He continues, “We’re pleased to see them launching The Climate Label to help more businesses take accountability for their emissions and invest in climate solutions.”
TCCP’s certification program aims to generate hundreds of billions of dollars for the net-zero transition by tapping the power of consumer preferences. ‘The Climate Label’ and updated Standard will begin to replace the Climate Neutral Certified mark in early 2025. To learn more, please visit changeclimate.org/2025.
