2022 in review for Carbon A List

Looking back

As the year comes to a close, I am incredibly grateful and humbled by all the work Carbon A List has been able to accomplish in 2022. None of this would have been possible without the team, our method of doing work, clients needing the work, and a good deal of fortune. But as we seek to make our own luck we refine our processes, systems, and understanding of why things do or do not work. For us, it starts from understanding our values: access and balance. Access, as it relates to de-siloing information and creating connectivity, collaboration, and inclusivity. Balance, as a team, with our clients, what we take on as a company, and in/outside of our work. We’ve been able to relate these values to our mission to help those addressing the climate crisis spend their time and resources more efficiently. With our tagline: come for the carbon, stay for the ecosystem, we find ourselves able to offer a deeper understanding of carbon accounting as a starting point, able to branch out and relate to activities that help clients get the job done when it comes to climate impact.

I’m thrilled to be part of co-creating a thoughtful culture with a remote team that has adopted rituals like “munch and learns”, retrospectives, and runs every project through a framework of “why we say yes” (and has no problem saying no) while also connecting our actions to an evolving set of principles. I’m elated by the activated community we are connected to through our clients, partners, newsletter subscribers, and participants in our free Off the Climate Record series. Our medium blog is a growing testament to our effort to be a useful guide in this space with topics that span data, carbon, and tools.

2022 by the numbers:

8 active team members.

18 service contracts begun (15 finished)

These include:

• 4 gaps assessments
• 3 workshops on ecosystem service value
• Lead author to 3 grant proposals (all three successful! Totaling $170M of USDA funding)
• 1 framework (A Framework for Designing Quality Assets)
• 2 standards related contracts (the Urban Ecosystem Standard and on Land Use Change)
• 2 go-to-market strategies
• 4 strategic and tactical consulting retainers

Our work has taken us deep in agriculture, and touched quite a few crops seeking transformative change across the supply chain, enabling actors to improve market based instruments and programs. We have been able to work directly with multinational corporations, commodity checkoff programs, large nonprofits and start-ups. With these clients, we have had the privilege to learn along the way and offer value where we can in a quickly evolving landscape. We take the approach of quality over quantity, and hope that our work and reputation will speak for itself.

What’s next

Looking forward to 2023, we anticipate continued work with our existing and new clients with the above services, and finding ways to support greater harmonization of pathways and programs delivering ecosystem service value. We are excited to focus on delivering on the Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities grant we were awarded to springboard these efforts and help ourselves, other grantees, and beyond.

As we do this work, we are refining our processes and will continue to offer products and services that have value for the ecosystem and we want to hear from you. We recognize we can’t, and shouldn’t try to “do it all” and in fact, we hope to do less and design for obsolescence. Yet along with our service offerings, we are discovering the overlap and opportunity for what our clients are asking us to do to create a data and knowledge management platform. This can become a second brain for different actors in the climate action ecosystem. If this is of interest to you, please fill out this form. We will be actively scoping out and testing this product in the near year. If you have any bespoke needs related to the types of services listed above you’d like to talk to us about, please fill out this form.