The Climate Dividends Association
The Climate Dividends Initiative is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to accelerate sustainable investment by facilitating the measure of positive climate contribution and enabling it to be understood, used and valued by the financial system.
We strive to steer equity investment towards companies developing climate solutions contributing to global carbon neutrality. We do so through the development of Climate Dividends, an extra financial mechanism corresponding to the positive contribution to global decarbonisation of a company, that can be claimed by its shareholders.
Our concrete tasks are:
- Define how Climate Dividends work: impact assessment methodologies, issuance and distribution process, usage and communication guidelines
- Coordinate Climate Dividends’ issuance and distribution: ensure transparency and traceability, certify the auditors, support the users
- Push for a wider market adoption of Climate Dividends, as a market best-practice amongst investors and in regulation and reporting standards, alongside other indicators
A growing community
Climate Dividends is an initiative gathering pioneers, companies, investors and many other stakeholders from all over the world, who strive to change our financial system, collaboratively.
founding members
user companies (as of Jan 2025)
user investors
Climate Dividends issued
Our history
The Climate Dividends Association was born in 2021 from a shared diagnosis between climate investors and climate solutions.
It begins with a simple question...
Mehdi Coly, CEO of Team For The Planet, a citizen non for profit fund dedicated to finance climate solutions, was wondering: "How could we measure the climate returns of our investments?".
He reached out to many people within the sustainability ecosystem and found out that there was simply no simple and standardised measure or tool to answer this question!
As an entrepreneur, he decided to create it!
Together with a bunch of climate visionaries (and nerds!), they imagined the main characteristics of Climate Dividends, as a mirror of financial dividends for climate. We owe a lot to these guys - Renaud Bettin (VP Climate from Sweep), César Dugast (then head of NZI from Carbone 4), Baptiste Perrissin-Fabert (Deputy CEO in charge of expertise from Ademe), Hugh Salway (Gold Standard), Pedro Faria from CDP and many others...
They designed it to be an indicator measuring the positive contribution of companies to global decarbonisation that could then be traced back to investors and enable them to assess the "planet return" of their investments.
Introducing the concept to the world
After several months of brainstorming, this group of pioneers had drafted the first, preliminary version of the Protocol, defining how Climate Dividends would work.
To launch the concept, they presented it during ChangeNow in Paris in April 2022. As the feedbacks were very positive, they knew they had hit on something important!
To actually turn the concept into a reality, they started to look for an entrepreneur that would take over the project.
That's when they met Laura, a seasoned entrepreneur who had recently sold her previous company in e-health and was looking for a new challenge, with a stronger focus on climate. It's a match!
Laura arrived in September 2022. She defined the broader vision of the initiative, gathered official founding members that shared it, and started raising funds to create the association's official structure.
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The first steps of Climate Dividends
The Climate Dividends association was officially created in January 2023 as a non-profit organisation of general interest. Brune Poirson, former french ecological secretary of state and current sustainability director at Accor, was appointed as President. Laura Beaulier was appointed operational CEO.
Together, they gathered pioneer organisations that are strongly committed to fighting climate change. There were the Association's founding members: Ademe, Team For The Planet, Mirova, Sweep, 2050 and the Fondation Kanopée Partage.
The official launching event was held in May 2023. It marked the beginning of a 2-year Pilot Phase to prove the value and the feasibility of the concept. In 2023:
↳ A first official version of the Climate Dividends Protocol was released in May thanks to the work of 12 experts
↳ 13 companies joined the Pilot Phase and collectively issued more than 1m Climate Dividends and distributed them to their investors
↳ The first employee, Simon, was hired in June as the Technical Director of the Association.
Things are getting serious
In 2024, the initiative continued to swiftly develop.
The second year of the Pilot Phase gathered 30+ companies. Collectively, they issued more than 1.2m of Climate Dividends and distributed them to more than 100+ investors.
The Association strengthened the methodological aspects even more by:
↳ setting up a Technical Committee, composed of independent experts to help us on specific matters
↳ publishing 5+ sectoral cookbooks (i.e sectoral application of the Protocol)
↳ opening a public consultation on the Protocol (in Q4) to gather experts and market insights
Climate Dividends also gained international recognition within the ecosystem - partnership with Solar Impulse Foundation, mention in multiple reports (GFANZ, CERES...) and participation to other initiatives' working groups (Project FRAME).
The team was also reinforced with the arrival of a second employee Thibault, as Operations Director.
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What’s next ?
Our ambition is clear - Make Climate Dividends an internationally recognized and standardized indicator, used
by institutions and the market to promote climate solutions and redirect funding towards them.
This will require to:
↳ keep the community growing with more users, partners and investors, internationally
↳ keep improving our Protocol, making sure that we're aligned with the most recent developments, that our issuance & distribution rules are consistent and robust, and that our communication guidelines ensure a good use of Climate Dividends
↳ reinforcing our advocacy work to push for a global recognition of the contribution approach
In the long-run, our objective is also to tackle other funding mechanisms (debt, not just equity) for climate, as well as other impact dimensions.
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A transparent and collaborative governance
To ensure the neutrality of the Association, the co-construction with different stakeholders, and the ambition and dynamism of the project, the following governance was set.
The Advisory Board is the main governance body and it's composed of:
The Board of Directors
Currently, it's composed of:
- ADEME (represented by Baptiste Perrissin-Fabert).
- Brune Poirson, who serves as the president.
- Marie-Anne Vincent, who serves as general secretary
The Strategic Committee
It's a consultative body, providing the initiative with strategic and financial recommendations. It's composed of:
- Sweep
- Mirova
- The Kanopée Foundation
- 2050
- Team for the Planet
Laura Beaulier, CEO, handles the operation of the initiative and seats with a consultative voice on the Advisory Board.
The board seats together once every quarter.
Its role is to Advise and provide strategic insights on the technical choices made by the Climate Dividends Association, which implies (but is not limited to):
- The continuous improvement of the Climate Dividends Protocol
- The validation of sector specific methodologies for impact evaluation
- The referencing of independent third-parties to intervene as validators/verifiers
The members sit on the technical committee as individuals (not as representatives of an organisation) but must of course disclose the organisations they work for / are related to.
They are named for a 1 year mandate which can be renewed.
They are in direct contact with the Climate Dividends’ technical director, Simon Deschamps and sit every quarter.
They are international experts from various backgrounds (academic/scientific, finance, civil society, industry, carbon markets,...).
Ordered list
- Item A
- Item B
- Item C
Advisory Board
The advisory board is composed of 2 bodies - the Board of Directors who has a decision power and the Strategic Committee whose members have a consultative voice. Both work hand in hand to challenge and validate critical strategic decisions for the initiative. Together with the Operational Team, they also represent Climate Dividends publicly.
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Technical Committee
The committee advises on the Climate Dividends Association’s technical decisions, including improving the protocol, structuring the Protocol evolution processes, aligning with other relevant frameworks , and validating sector-specific methodologies.
Members serve as individuals, independent recognized experts, not as organizational representatives, and work closely with Technical Director Simon Deschamps.
Operational Team
The Operational Team is in charge of running the daily operations of the Climate Dividends Association.
A transparent funding and budget
Funding sources
From inception until the end of 2024, the Climate Dividends Association relied entirely on donations and membership fees.
Budget
All our funding directly serves the Climate Dividends mission.
In 2024, the overall budget was just above 300k€
You can support the initiative by donating (tax deduction for French donors - 60% for companies and 66% for individual donors).