Science-based measurement meets science-based removal

Together, Normative and Patch provide a combined solution enabling companies like PNO Rental - the Nordics' largest range of short and long-term trailer rentals - to accurately measure their full emissions profile and neutralize their unavoidable emissions with high-impact carbon credit projects that are a true investment in the future.

Accurate emissions measurements are a prerequisite for effective climate action—but they’re also tricky for businesses to calculate. A study shows that 91% of businesses fail to measure the full scope of their emissions, preventing themselves from understanding—let alone managing—their total climate impact.

This accuracy gap is especially harmful when it comes to value chain emissions: Responsible for around 90% of a business’s carbon footprint, they’re complicated to measure since they occur outside a company’s own operations. 

Founded in Stockholm in 2014, Normative measures a business’s climate impact in granular detail, inputting over 30 million data points into its carbon accounting engine. It also tackles the problem of value chain emissions measurements by using a functional blend of spend-based and activity-based data. 

To do so, Normative leverages the business’s financial transactions and matches data sources to emissions costs, using nearly 10 million supplier profiles and 25,000 emissions factors sourced from scientific publications. The business can then refine this initial measurement by collecting activity data from the suppliers in its value chain, beginning with its biggest emitters. 

Once the measurement is complete, Normative helps businesses identify hotspots and create a tailored reduction plan. Not all emissions can be eliminated immediately though, and many companies want to catalyze climate action today. This means turning to carbon credits to compensate for their remaining emissions.

For that, Normative partnered with Patch.

Science-backed climate investment

Navigating between different methods of carbon removal and emissions avoidance can be difficult for businesses. A lack of standardization and legal definition means that carbon removal is largely an unregulated frontier. Cheap offsetting options abound, and they often perform poorly in key metrics like permanence and additionality.

Using low-quality carbon offsetting results in a host of risks, from damages to a company’s reputation—think accusations of greenwashing—to potential insufficiencies as new legislative standards are passed. “In other words,” explains Eline Wajon, Head of Climate Strategy at Normative, “cheap offsetting is less a cost-effective decision and more a path to climate debt that will come due in the future.”

With this in mind, Normative teamed up with Patch to offer high-impact, science-backed carbon removal options to its customers. The latter—guided by Normative’s climate strategists and the Patch Climate Action Team—can select from a curated portfolio of carbon removal methods available on the Patch marketplace.

“Our collaboration with Patch streamlines and simplifies the process for businesses to reach net zero, enabling them to take every step—from measurement, to reduction, to removal—through Nomative,” saysEline Wajon, Head of Climate Strategy at Normative. (Learn more about how climate investments can help businesses reach net zero in this webinar from Normative featuring Patch.)

From measurement to removal: one business’s journey

Denmark-based company PNO Rental, for example, has set a target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2030.

After PNO used Normative to gain a more comprehensive and accurate measurement of its emissions, the trailer rental company totaled up its operational impact for the period between 2019 and 2021, which included scope 1, scope 2, business travel, water, and paper emissions. It determined it had 271.10 tons of carbon to compensate—a total that served as the launch point for PNO’s climate investment.

Solvej Lee Ørnstrand, Chief Impact Officer at PNO says "Investing into our climate is a must, not a nice-to-have. It’s about supporting innovative
technologies and projects that permanently remove carbon. We’re partnering with Patch to invest into four forward-thinking carbon removal projects around the world.”

Working with Normative’s climate strategy team, PNO identified four of Patch’s carbon removal methods to use: kelp sequestration, enhanced weathering, biochar, and concrete mineralization. Each method had high permanence and strong additionality ratings as determined by Patch, ensuring that PNO could feel secure in the effectiveness of its carbon removal.

PNO then made the climate investment, accessing Patch’s marketplace through its partnership with Normative.

Accessible climate action for all

Normative is ramping up work to refine its calculations while expanding its offering to help more businesses take climate action. By collaborating with partners like Patch, it ensures that every business on its platform will have a clear, easy-to-use, and effective way of completing its path to net zero.

“The world needs more climate leaders like PNO who are pushing the frontier of climate investments and the journey to net zero,” states Brennan Spellacy, Co-founder and CEO of Patch. “Patch is pleased to be working with Normative to enable this critical movement.”