Whew. What a year.

In late October of 2025, we launched Carbon Measures with a clear sense of urgency: industrial decarbonization needs to move faster, and companies have a critical role to play. Our members challenged us to move quickly, and we’ve carried that expectation into everything we do. As we’ve advanced this work, conversations with businesses, governments, academics and civil society around the world have reinforced a critical lesson: reducing emissions in hard-to-abate sectors requires us to embed reductions in industrial policy, alongside the targets we set through climate policy. That perspective brings affordability, competitiveness, growing energy needs and national security to the table, and recognizes that the major capital investments made today will shape industrial production and emissions for the decades to come. 

That’s why we’re focused on advancing product-level carbon intensity policies that reflect that complexity and make emissions reductions part of broader industrial decisions. By creating demand for lower-carbon products, these policies can drive innovation, help companies achieve economies of scale, and make better emissions performance a competitive advantage. 

365 Days of Speed and Action 

I’m proud of how much we’ve accomplished and the momentum we’ve built in our first year. We’ve expanded our coalition, built a team of experienced professionals, and brought together diverse perspectives to turn ambition into practical action. Our members, experts and team have shown a willingness to challenge assumptions, learn from one another and turn technical discussion into practical progress. There is already so much important work happening across the ecosystem. We have the opportunity to build on it, bring fresh thinking and innovation to the table, and rethink the market conditions that will help lower-carbon solutions thrive. Together we’ve accomplished:

• Continued membership growth: We’re delighted to welcome new members to Carbon Measures, bringing our membership to 31 companies – an increase of more than 63% since our launch. Each new member brings valuable expertise and perspectives, while expanding our reach across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. If there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that no single company or sector can solve the challenge of industrial decarbonization alone. That’s why we are intentionally bringing together diverse industry expertise, perspectives, and technological capabilities to help inform effective product carbon intensity policies that accelerate industrial decarbonization while creating market incentives for lower-carbon solutions.
• Team growth: We’ve built a team of 20 seasoned professionals, including attorneys, policy experts, scientists, engineers, accountants and technology leaders. Our team includes four colleagues with PhDs and three with JDs, alongside practical expertise in sustainability, industrial operations, and global supply chains.
• Technical expertise: As committed in the COP30 Global Climate Action Agenda Outcomes Report, alongside the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), we established a 24-member Technical Expert Panel (TEP) on Carbon Accounting, bringing together experts from industry, academia, science, policy and the accounting profession across North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Former Colombian President Iván Duque was also recently announced as chair of the TEP Advisory Group.
• Foundational work: The world needs a common language for the carbon intensity of products, and building that language starts with shared principles for how emissions are measured and accounted for. The TEP’s Guiding Principles and the TEP’s Secretariat’s Landscape Review helped lay that foundation, establishing common criteria for effective carbon accounting and identifying the strengths and gaps in existing approaches. This work was essential to informing the ongoing development of a ledger-based product-level carbon accounting framework.
• Knowledge partnerships: We’re working with McKinsey & Company and Resources for the Future to understand how product carbon intensity standards could affect policy, investment, industrial operations, affordability, trade and competitiveness. Each of their analyses will help us understand how these policies could work in practice for businesses and consumers.
• Active ecosystem participation: We’re contributing to COP31 working groups and hold liaison status in connection with ISO’s Joint Working Group on product-level carbon accounting. 
• Global engagement: Beyond COP30, we’ve brought our work to Davos, CERAWeek, UN SB 64 in Bonn, London Climate Action Week, New York Climate Action Week and Sustainable Business COP, and will continue these discussions at COP31 in Türkiye.

Advancing an Open-Source Solution for Global Participation

Advances in technology, including AI, are creating new opportunities to track carbon intensity across complex industrial supply chains in a reliable and verifiable way. As one of Carbon Measures’ newest members, Context Labs will bring experience in doing just that: connecting operational data, calculating product-level carbon intensity across complex supply chains, and supporting compliance with existing reporting frameworks and regulations.

As part of its membership, Context Labs and Carbon Measures will explore the development of open-source software to support the implementation of product-level carbon accounting, with the goal of making product-level carbon accounting easier to adopt and use.

The solution would aim to make carbon accounting more accessible to companies of all sizes, integrate with existing enterprise systems, support regulatory reporting, and reduce barriers to adoption for smaller suppliers. It could also support future Carbon Measures pilots and case studies, helping identify and address practical accounting challenges across industries, supply chains, and jurisdictions.

Looking Ahead: A Difficult Challenge, but a Clear and Promising Goal

Our measure of success is simple: emissions in hard-to-abate sectors going down as a result of impact-based policies. That kind of system change takes time, but seeing producers, buyers, investors, policymakers and technical experts with a shared sense of purpose gives me confidence that we can make progress. A growing focus on industrial competitiveness and the evolution of product-level policies are opening opportunities to put practical solutions to work.

No single policymaker, company or sector has all the answers to  solve the challenge of industrial decarbonization alone. Our growing membership brings more of the value chain into this collective effort. Across the globe, we see fellow travelers – people in different organizations, sectors and regions – developing solutions, testing new approaches and asking important questions. We have much to learn from that work, and I welcome those who want to challenge our thinking and contribute their own. Co-creation means being willing to listen – and letting what we learn shape what we do next.

As we enter our second year, my challenge to all of us is to think bigger about how we reduce emissions – not just as a priority in climate policy, but as a key enabler embedded in economic development strategies, industrial policy, and business decisions for producers and buyers alike.

I invite you to join us in rethinking how we create the market conditions needed to accelerate industrial decarbonization. Together, we can make lower-carbon production a competitive advantage – and turn that advantage into emissions reductions at scale.