Helping Turn Climate Conversations Toward Climate Action

Scott Tew: Yeah. I think the most exciting thing is just the energy. I mean, the rooms are full of people who want to know what's it take to, to get started, to, to make things happen? I, I remember years ago when the rooms were not packed and people were thinking that company commitments were just words on paper. That's not where we are today. I mean, companies of all sizes, small, medium, large, uh, they're all at the table, they're all trying to figure out what their plan forward is. I’m excited most because so many are doing so much, and there's this eagerness to learn from others. I mean, we've all talked about best practice learning for years and we all know what that is. I've never sensed a, a moment before where so many companies are willing to share what's working and so many companies are taking what they're hearing back inside their own companies to make progress.

For Trane Technologies, it was about recognizing the big opportunity, 15% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions related to heating and cooling buildings, and so, you can look at that as a big opportunity or, or a big problem. We chose opportunity and, you know, I ... As I explain how we got started, it was that recognition and then setting a bold commitment, our Gigaton Challenge, sort of was the launching pad for all our actions since.

We get a lot of questions about science-based targets, outside groups that can validate whether your commitments are big enough, and, you know, we certainly endorse using science, having commitments and your data reviewed by outside parties. The SBT groups, science-based targets group, is a way to get started. But beyond that, we invite other companies to join us in this transparency movement - around showing your data, talking about what's working, where you're having problems. I think we're setting a good example for how to do that with our website and reports that we're disclosing our progress in and other companies are very interested in how they get started in that journey, too.

Part of our work to be more transparent around our progress has involved us putting together and developing a Gigaton playbook, and the playbook is really that – it’s to help people who want to know more about how you calculate Scope 3 emissions reductions, what specifically is Trane Technologies doing, what's in our calculations. You know, we have everything from the specifics of a system which includes refrigerants, energy, efficiency and, and other important factors.

But no matter what company is getting started here, there's a playbook they probably should develop as well to help those interested parties. Customers, investors, their own employees understand what it takes to make progress against the commitment.