Welcome to another week of Shaken Not Burned! 

Climate action seems to be under attack everywhere: while EU regulation is being reviewed and watered down, the United States is no longer considering greenhouse gases a threat to public health and welfare. ESG disclosure requirements continue to be politicised: the political mood is volatile and, in some places, openly hostile.

Yet beneath that surface confusion, there seems to be something fundamental shifting. Even though addressing climate change is often a political issue, its impacts are simply reality. As central banks and insurers struggle with the impact of extreme weather, and the knock-on impact on economies, there is a growing focus on examining systemic climate risk.

Credit markets are reassessing exposure to transition and physical shocks, with the body of research in constant growth. Investors managing trillions are trying to understand which companies are building long-term resilience and which are simply reporting against legacy metrics.

That raises an uncomfortable question: are we measuring the right thing? As we become more aware of the interconnected nature of the challenges we face, has the focus on decarbonisation failed to provide the big picture that we really need to understand corporate action?

In this week’s episode of Shaken Not Burned, Felicia speaks to Rachel Delacour, co-founder and CEO of Sweep, about the Climate Contribution Framework, which Sweep has developed with Mirova, ICARE and Winrock International. The framework builds on existing emissions reporting standards but widens the lens to the actual contribution to wider net zero goals. Instead of defining leadership solely by emissions reduction, it evaluates companies across three areas: decarbonising their footprint, scaling low-carbon solutions, and financing climate innovation.

The shift is subtle but significant. A company’s footprint tells us what it emits, while its contribution tells us what sort of change it can enable. Firms investing in electrification, deploying new technologies or financing transition infrastructure may be accelerating system-wide decarbonisation in ways that traditional metrics barely register. Sector context and starting points matter as well; a first mover that has already decarbonised cannot be assessed in the same way as a late entrant beginning from a high-carbon base.

For investors, this becomes more than a reporting adjustment. It offers a clearer signal about long-term value creation and transition readiness. For companies, it reframes climate action as strategy rather than compliance, helping them see where their potential exceeds their current performance and where they can genuinely move the needle on climate impact.

At a moment when climate rhetoric is polarised but climate risk is compounding, we need tools that reflect how change actually happens. Emissions reduction remains essential, but it is only one part of the story. If we want to understand who is contributing to a net zero future, or who is positioned to thrive within it, we may need to measure more than just a footprint.

Sweep and Mirova Research Center launched the Climate Contribution Framework (CCF): A New Standard for Corporate Climate Action in November 2025.

The methodology developed by I Care by BearingPoint, and Winrock International provides a unified, science-based benchmark to fairly measure and value the full spectrum of corporate contributions to global net zero.

Further reading:

• Climate Contribution Framework (CCF): A New Standard for Corporate Climate Action 

• Absolute vs intensity based carbon targets – the lowdown

• Carbon Footprint vs Carbon Handprint: Do You Know the Difference?

• Limited accountability and awareness of corporate emissions target outcomes

• Carbon handprint – An approach to assess the positive climate impacts of products demonstrated via renewable diesel case

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