ACHIEVE – Achieving High-Integrity Voluntary Climate Action

ACHIEVE is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme and includes 12 institutions. ACHIEVE’s main aim is to identify opportunities to strengthen and scale up high-integrity voluntary climate action to contribute towards achieving net- zero emissions by mid-century in the EU and globally, informed by a robust scientific understanding of their effectiveness and integrity, and their relation to policies at different levels of governance.

The main topic being investigated is the integrity of voluntary climate action. These include voluntary cooperative climate initiatives (e.g. international cooperative initiatives), actions of individual non-state actors, and voluntary carbon credits. Actors that advocate voluntary climate actions operate outside the UNFCCC and bring together groups of non-state actors with common interests and comparable ambition, often organised by countries, industrial associations, or international organisations. Integrated assessment models in this project will be used to develop scenarios and transition pathways showing the emissions and economic impacts of current voluntary actions from groups of cities, regions, and companies. In addition, scenarios will explore the impact of upscaling voluntary actions based on the developed integrity principles, role of carbon credits and governance & and regulation insights. This way, the transition pathways will give insights into the potential to tighten or close the emissions gap between current policies and climate actions and pathways to keep temperature increase well-below 2 C or 1.5 C in line with the Paris Agreement goals.

ACHIEVE’s objectives are:

• Support the development, improvement and scaling up of voluntary climate action towards net zero transition in the EU and globally, by establishing and facilitating interaction between researchers, policymakers and societal stakeholders in the co-production of knowledge and mutual learning.
• Provide a comprehensive mapping of current voluntary climate initiatives, the role that carbon credits play in relation to these initiatives, and approaches that are used to assess them.
• Develop a framework for assessing high-integrity voluntary climate action, including the use of carbon credit schemes, based on a review of definitions, (in)consistencies, claims and principles of high integrity suggested for different types of initiatives and actors that take part in them
• Conduct systematic assessments of voluntary climate initiatives, their alignment with high-integrity principles, their use of carbon credits, and their consistency with regulations and policies aimed at achieving net-zero emissions by mid- century globally, as well as sustainable development goals, with a particular focus on different sectors and actor groups based on their representativeness, influence and potential impacts.
• Develop recommendations on strengthening and scaling up high-integrity voluntary climate action through improved monitoring, reporting and verification,and enhanced cooperation and data access between data providers, analysts and users.
• Develop recommendations on how international, EU and national policies and regulations, and high-integrity voluntary climate action can mutually strengthen each other
• Produce transition pathway scenarios for authorities, financial institutions and companies to support different stakeholders and policymakers in their design, inclusion and scaling up of voluntary climate efforts, through integrated assessment modelling that integrates voluntary climate initiatives, interactions with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and stakeholders’ needs taking part in initiatives.
• Increase the capacity for assessing and improving the integrity of voluntary climate initiatives worldwide, by making methods, models, data and research findings openly accessible, sharing best practices and engaging policymakers and stakeholders across developed and developing countries.