What do the terms climate neutrality, net zero, and climate positivity really mean?

For companies, it can be difficult to navigate these terms and understand exactly what is required to reach each goal, especially when it comes to balancing emissions and taking actions to compensate for negative climate impact.

Climate Neutrality

Climate neutrality means that emissions from a business, product, or individual are balanced through emission reductions and/or climate financing. The result is net-zero emissions, but how this is achieved can vary.

Challenges and Risks:

• Misleading: Companies may rely on climate financing rather than actual emission reductions, meaning operations can continue to have high emissions while claiming to be climate neutral.
• No harmonization of quality requirements: There are standards for climate neutrality and for climate projects, but no common guidance linking them together. As a result, the quality of the climate projects companies choose to support can vary greatly, and it's unclear what level is actually required to credibly claim climate neutrality.
• Temporary solutions: Tree planting can take decades to have full effect and is vulnerable to forest fires or deforestation, making it an uncertain method for achieving climate neutrality.
• Greenwashing risk: Companies may market their products as climate neutral without making real emission reductions, potentially misleading consumers and reducing pressure for real transformation.

Net Zero

Net zero means drastic emission reductions globally, where remaining emissions are balanced through negative emissions, such as tree planting or carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The Paris Agreement states that global warming must be kept well below 2°C, with the ambition to limit it to 1.5°C. According to the IPCC, achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 is necessary to have a reasonable chance of meeting the 1.5°C target.

Challenges and Risks:

• Dependence on future technologies: Many net-zero strategies rely on technologies that are not yet fully developed or implemented on a large scale. CCS and other technical solutions are costly and unproven on a large scale.
• Risk of delaying action: Companies may rely on future negative emissions rather than acting now, delaying the necessary transition.
• Unclear definitions: While the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has introduced a widely adopted global Net-Zero Standard, differences in interpretation and application remain. This makes it difficult to compare corporate commitments and assess which ones truly meet high standards.
• Uneven distribution of responsibility: A global strategy can lead to some countries or companies relying on others to compensate for their emissions, creating inequities in climate responsibility.

Climate Positivity

Climate positivity means that a business removes more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it causes, resulting in so-called negative emissions.

Challenges and Risks:

• Lack of a uniform definition: Organizations claiming to be climate positive may do so by only purchasing additional climate measures without actively reducing their own emissions.
• Risk of misleading marketing: Since climate positivity is often used in marketing, consumers may believe a product is good for the climate, even though it may still have significant gross emissions.
• Uncertainty around negative emissions: For a business to be climate positive, it must actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, techniques like carbon capture are more costly, under development, and difficult to verify as permanent solutions.
• Difficult comparability: Since different organizations use various methods to calculate their emissions and climate actions, it can be challenging to assess how effective different climate-positive initiatives actually are.

Summary

These concepts play an important role in climate goals but require clearer definitions and standards to avoid misuse. Innovation and verification are crucial to ensure that companies are genuinely contributing to a sustainable future rather than using climate strategies as marketing tools.
To achieve global climate targets, emission reductions must be prioritized over reliance on climate action projects. A credible strategy requires a combination of scientifically-based goals, transparent reporting, and investments in new technologies that help reduce emis