At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change came into being. More than three decades later, negotiators, companies, policymakers, and NGOs are headed back to Brazil for COP30. The Earth Summit brought countries together to take action on curbing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change. Fast forward, and COP30 in Belém marks another big step in how policymakers, companies, and other stakeholders prioritize the best way forward on climate action.
Hosting COP30 in the heart of the Amazon is a strategic and symbolic act. It highlights the COP organizers' desire to explicitly link climate, nature, and a just transition. The Brazilian hosts are emphasizing the importance of ‘Mutirão’ – a collaborative approach to solving challenges in an uncertain and complex world – to make meaningful progress on this multifaceted agenda.
The COP30 Presidency (held by Brazil) has declared that the time for goal-setting is over. Instead, COP30 will center on implementing existing goals across 30 key action areas, such as tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, providing $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance for developing countries by 2035, and reducing emissions in line with the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. The potential of technology, including AI, to accelerate successful implementation also features prominently on the agenda.
Organizers and companies agree
The corporate world is aligned with organizers on the urgency of action. As ERM's CEO, Tom Reichert observed during Climate Week NYC, companies are increasingly framing sustainability and climate efforts through the lens of value creation and emphasizing business-critical sustainability strategies. This helps businesses prioritize investments that reduce risks and costs, drive product innovation, and open new markets and revenue streams.
Additionally, investors and shareholders now expect companies to demonstrate the commercial value of sustainability by quantifying the financial gain of their climate-linked investments and actions. Every company we speak with is convinced that AI will be instrumental in making that happen — for example, in decarbonizing industrial processes. Companies are also increasingly recognizing that impacts on nature, climate, and communities are intertwined, and their risks and opportunities need to be quantified and assessed simultaneously.
ERM believes that COP30 presents an opportunity to build momentum that reinforces corporate focus on climate action, drives value creation, and builds resilience for companies, society, and the planet. The ERM team attending is eager to contribute to the discussions at Belém. Here I’d like to outline four things with the potential to shape outcomes at COP and beyond.
The spirit of ‘Mutirão’ delivers international collaboration on investment and action on climate
- While geopolitical and economic headwinds have slowed investments and growth in some key technologies and markets, most companies plan to maintain or expand their sustainability efforts in areas such as asset decarbonisation, investments in clean energy and innovative technologies, and supplier engagement that are crucial for emissions reduction. Strong signals of collaboration and action from countries, business, finance, and other stakeholders will create confidence that in turn builds momentum.
- Results in Belém that could change the narrative include:
- National climate plans (NDCs) with sector-specific policies and market signals that encourage investments—what are now being called ‘investable NDCs.’ A recent Unilever report produced with ERM’s support explores how investible NDCs can accelerate corporate sustainability investments. Strong country commitments delivered in Belém could also support a major expansion of blended finance, which uses (semi-) public funds to derisk private sustainability investments. According to a recent NDC synthesis report, 90 percent of the 64 NDCs published so far contain economy-wide targets, but sector-level targets are still rare, appearing in only six percent of published NDCs.
- Further strengthening the carbon credit framework outlined in the Paris Agreement (Article 6) through enhanced integrity and linkage to national carbon markets. This has the potential to create a trusted global carbon market and fuel trade in high-quality credits. For more, read our blog “Why carbon markets are heating up again.” ERM is a member of the Business Advisory Group to the Coalition to Grow Carbon Markets and will be actively engaged with key stakeholders at COP30.
- Further convergence of sustainability and disclosure frameworks for nature, climate, and finance, helping create a more consistent and robust set of information on corporate action that can be used by investors and other stakeholders. Read more on regulatory trends in our Global Regulations Radar, our latest CSRD report, and our blog on responding to recent California regulations.
The famous Brazilian hospitality and optimism will provide a backdrop for action and collaboration at COP30. ERM is cautiously optimistic that real progress can be made. We will play our part through showcasing innovation, convening dialogue on important issues, connecting capital to investable initiatives, and collaborating with partners to accelerate corporate climate action that contributes to economic resilience.
A more stable national and global investment environment post-Belém will encourage businesses and the finance sector to deploy capital at scale
- The convergence of global regulation and investible NDCs can help create a more predictable investment environment. Comprehensive, robust, and sector-specific NDCs anchor corporate transition planning, a process that enables companies to identify opportunities for sustainability-related value creation and value protection. For more, read our blog “Missing link.”
- A stable investment environment also supports accurate, corporate-finance-grade quantification of underlying business cases, helping unearth the climate-linked opportunities with the largest commercial value and improving access to capital. Furthermore, quantification identifies opportunities that would create value with minor policy changes.
- More national and global predictability will also drive value creation up and down value chains since companies would have a more reliable foundation to invest or encourage suppliers to invest. This will also increase the motivation for companies to collaborate—within sectors, across sectors, and with governments. For more, read our blog on leveraging Scope 3 for value creation.
Companies demonstrating how they are delivering a just transition in a nature-positive and net zero economy
- For the first time during international sustainability negotiations, the COP30 Presidency has explicitly integrated just transition considerations in all 30 key action areas.
- More companies now recognize that integrating people into their plans will support a just transition—from reskilling workforces for the needs of the green economy to maintaining a social license to operate in critical mineral projects. ERM’s report “Embedding just transition into corporate climate action strategies” offers companies guidance. ERM will further explore the topic during the launch of the Business Leaders Guide on the Just Transition at an event being held in collaboration with mining company Vale and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
- Integrated transition planning is a valuable tool to proactively map potential adverse effects of business actions, for example, when a decarbonization action reduces corporate emissions but also has negative impacts on nature and communities. For more information, read this transition planning primer that ERM produced in collaboration with the WBCSD.
The potential transformational power of AI enabling companies to effectively implement climate actions that create or protect value
- AI is high on the agenda in Belém; Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), calls AI a ‘game changer’ for sustainability implementation. Several AI initiatives being showcased at Belém, including “AI for Climate Action Innovation Factory 2025,” will present AI-powered solutions across clean energy, sustainable agriculture, ecosystem restoration, and inclusive environmental action.
- There have already been some early successes applying AI for climate solutions. For example, ERM has decarbonized numerous industrial processes with its emissions.AI solution, which builds digital twins of existing facilities to identify ways to reduce energy use. View some case studies here.
Given the momentum we felt at the most recent climate weeks in London, New York, and other major cities, ERM is cautiously optimistic that meaningful progress will be made in Brazil. We will play our part by showcasing innovation, convening dialogue on crucial issues, connecting capital to investable initiatives, and collaborating with partners to accelerate corporate climate action that contributes to economic resilience. It is encouraging to see both companies and the COP30 Presidency underscore the urgency of implementation. For companies, this means a strict focus on value creation and business-critical sustainability strategies. This helps them to prioritize actions that reduce risks, save costs, and drive product innovation and new revenue streams, which contributes to a more resilient planet, a more stable economy, and a more equitable society.
Preview video
In this video, ERM's Linden Edgell, Global Sustainability Director and Ricardo Zibas, Regional Head of Climate Change and Corporate Sustainability, talk about the challenges and discussions ahead at COP30.
