Accenture has published a report including a three-year road map on decarbonisation focused on industry.  As the report authors point out, we are at the halfway point between signing the Paris Agreement and its first major deadline in 2030. While much has been achieved since 2015, heavy industry has made little progress.

The world relies on five energy intensive industries: steel, metals and mining, cement, chemicals, and freight and logistics. Their products and services feed into the supply chains of virtually all others, but so do their emissions. Heavy industry scope 1 and scope 2 emissions become their customers scope 3 emissions. If heavy industry fails to decarbonise, then all others will also fail. At the heart of this problem lies a vicious cycle of inaction. If this can be flipped to a virtuous cycle of action, in just three years, this could set the foundations for a new economic pathway and an orderly transition to net zero.

The report asserts that over the next three years, stakeholders must lay the foundation for transformation by pursuing three imperatives:

1. Target green premiums—higher charges for sustainable products and services—to finance the initial phase of industrial decarbonisation.
2. Accelerate scaling low-carbon power and hydrogen to guarantee affordable, secure supply.
3. Drive down capital and operating expenses of low-carbon infrastructure.

This three-year period is important, as most organisations use a three-year strategic planning cycle. And while all stakeholders have a responsibility to deliver on all three, different industries should take the lead on each.

 These imperatives will not by themselves achieve net zero, but what they will do is lay a foundation that makes net zero possible by breaking through the trade-off between growth and decarbonisation.