Last week, nonprofit Energy Peace Partners (EPP) submitted five pieces of research-based evidence and comments to inform SBTi’s Call for Evidence on the effectiveness of Environmental Attribute Certificates in Climate Targets.
EPP’s submission to SBTi highlights the importance of energy attribute certificates (EACs), including EAC labels like Peace Renewable Energy Credits (P-RECs), to support the decarbonization of the global power sector. EPP’s submission details how EACs enable additional financing for renewable energy and verifiable claims for corporate renewable energy procurement.
More specifically, EPP’s five research-based evidence submissions include:
Peace REC Project Case Studies: To provide background context about the role of P-RECs to help finance high impact renewable energy projects in the world’s most fragile countries and review three case studies of completed P-REC transactions with corporate renewable energy customers that highlight the role of P-RECs.
Peace REC Project Level Impact Tracking: To summarize insights that EPP gathered from the first two pilot data collection efforts associated with research about the positive social impacts delivered from P-REC projects as an example of the positive impact of EACs.
Literature review - Energy Access, Renewable Energy, and Social Impact report: To offer insights about how greater renewable energy access—supported through corporate renewable energy procurement of P-RECs and other EACs—has the potential to mediate the trinexus of energy poverty, conflict, and climate vulnerability.
Renewable energy and peace - Empirical analysis of global data white paper: To share insights about how construction and deployment of renewable energy projects—enabled by P-RECs and other types of EACs—is one such potential long-term tool for peace building, particularly in “triple threat” countries (i.e., countries that have low rates of electrification, are climate vulnerable, and conflict affected).
Case study - Peace RECs for Verifiable ESG Claims & Disclosures: To clarify the applicability and relevance of P-RECs and EACs more widely for verifiable claims for various voluntary and regulatory frameworks for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures based on research conducted in collaboration with Columbia University.
EPP’s comments emphasize—through the example of P-RECs—how EACs serve as both the currency and receipt underpinning global renewable energy markets, private sector-led financing for new renewable energy projects, and resulting corporate claims in their respective disclosures. Said another way, without a global EAC market, renewable energy project developers and operators would lose a meaningful source of revenue and risk mitigation. Energy customers, including global corporations, would lose a tangible option to support power sector decarbonization by voting through their procurement. It is also unclear what other scalable alternatives exist to provide companies both a means to advance positive change in decarbonizing the power sector and report the verified actions they took.
EPP encourages SBTi to prioritize the development of incentives that reduce entry barriers to and boost participation in global EAC markets in order to address climate finance and climate equity gaps.