Language in development and debate

The reduction or avoidance of emissions of greenhouse gases or other pollutants, widely used in climate policy as a synonym for mitigation, though without a single agreed definition.

The ability of systems, institutions, humans and other organisms to adjust to potential damage from climate change, take advantage of opportunities, or respond to consequences.

An adequate wage is pay assessed as sufficient under the applicable legal, collective-bargaining or normative framework, which may not be identical to a living wage.

Affected communities are groups of people whose rights, wellbeing, livelihoods, environment or cultural heritage may be changed by an organisation's operations or value chain.

An approach to farming and food systems that applies ecological principles — diversity, recycling, synergy and local knowledge — framed by FAO's 10 Elements adopted by 197 member countries in 2019.

A movement and platform, anchored by the ITU, promoting AI applications that advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Mining by individuals, families, groups or cooperatives with little or no mechanisation, often informal — a poverty-driven livelihood for millions and a persistent due-diligence challenge in mineral supply chains.

The part of the economy using renewable biological resources — plants, animals, microorganisms — to produce food, materials, chemicals and energy, increasingly framed by sustainability principles.

Organic, non-fossil material of biological origin — plants, animals, residues and organic waste — used as a material and energy feedstock.

The sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystems.

Wild animals harvested for food — a protein and income lifeline for millions of rural people and, unmanaged, a leading driver of wildlife decline in tropical forests.

The portion of a fishing catch that is not the primary target — from retained incidental species to discarded and unobserved mortality — a leading threat to seabirds, turtles, sharks and marine mammals.

Removing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than is emitted — a claim category beyond carbon neutrality, popularised by corporate pledges such as Microsoft's 2030 commitment.

A claim that an activity goes beyond net zero by removing more greenhouse gases from the atmosphere than it emits — a marketing-forward term without a settled technical standard.

Purchasing behaviour in which consumers deliberately weigh the environmental and social consequences of what they buy, favouring products aligned with their values.

Corporate culture is the shared pattern of values, incentives, behaviours and informal norms that shapes how people in an organisation make decisions.

The expectation that companies take responsibility for their impacts on society and the environment, beyond legal compliance and profit-seeking.

Long-term collaboration between organisations from at least two sectors — business, government, civil society — to address sustainability problems no single actor can solve alone.

A city planned and governed on ecological principles — compact, resource-efficient and nature-integrated — a concept popularised by Richard Register and adopted in World Bank usage.

A school of thought, named by Françoise d'Eaubonne in 1974, linking the domination of women and the domination of nature to shared patriarchal structures.

China's constitutional policy concept of development in harmony with nature, elevated from 2007 into the country's guiding environmental ideology.

Family-related leave is time away from work connected with childbirth, adoption, parenting, caregiving or serious family needs.

Marine resources are living and non-living resources, ecosystem services and ecological functions associated with oceans and coastal environments.

A judgement about which sustainability matters are significant enough to influence decisions or represent an organisation's most consequential impacts.

Principles and practices ensuring AI is developed and used in ethical, accountable and socially beneficial ways.

Systemic risk is the possibility that disruption spreads through an interconnected system and impairs the functioning or stability of the system as a whole.

Undue cost or effort is a reporting relief used when obtaining or preparing information would impose a disproportionate burden relative to its decision usefulness.

Afforestation is the establishment of forest on land that has not recently been forested, subject to the definition and time period used by the relevant framework.

Afforestation, reforestation and revegetation are land-based activities that establish or restore vegetation cover and may generate climate claims when measured against defined rules.

Using AI to generate, amplify or give false credibility to misleading environmental claims.

The deliberate process of making strategies, requirements, incentives, data or actions consistent enough to support a shared objective without necessarily making them identical.

The active, ongoing practice of using one's own position or privilege to advocate with — not merely for — people from marginalised or underrepresented groups.

The level, scale or pace of improvement an organisation seeks to achieve relative to a sustainability challenge, benchmark or pathway.

An emerging electrolyser technology that combines features of alkaline and PEM systems, aiming for low-cost, flexible green hydrogen production without precious-metal catalysts.

The organised political and legislative campaign, centred in the United States, seeking to restrict the use of environmental, social and governance considerations in investment and business decisions.

A governance approach that builds the capacity to explore uncertain futures, experiment and continuously learn, rather than reacting to problems once they are clear.

A low-carbon concrete in which fly ash — a by-product of coal combustion — replaces part or most of the Portland cement, cutting embodied emissions and diverting industrial waste.

A social-theory approach, derived from Deleuze and Guattari, that analyses socio-ecological arrangements as fluid wholes assembled from heterogeneous human and non-human parts.

The condition in which sustainability information, processes and controls are sufficiently defined, documented, evidenced and governed to support an independent assurance engagement without major reconstruction.

Avoided emissions are estimated emissions reductions outside an organisation’s own inventory that occur because a product, service or intervention displaces a higher-emitting alternative.

A baseline scenario is the reference case against which emissions reductions, removals, impacts or changes are estimated.

The felt outcome of inclusion — employees' sense of being accepted, valued and safe to be themselves — added to DEI frameworks as the "B" in DEIB.

Voluntary action that goes further than the minimum legal or mandatory requirement applicable to an organisation.

Beyond value chain mitigation is climate action or finance outside an organisation's own value chain, intended to support wider mitigation while not replacing internal emissions reductions.

A measure of how comfortably, conveniently and safely a place can be navigated by bicycle — used to compare cities and target cycling infrastructure investment.

Biochar is a carbon-rich material made by heating biomass in limited oxygen and used in some contexts as a carbon removal or soil amendment pathway.

A bond whose proceeds finance the protection or restoration of biodiversity — from use-of-proceeds green bonds with nature objectives to outcome-linked wildlife bonds.

A certificate representing a measured gain in biodiversity over a defined area and period — an emerging instrument for channelling private finance to conservation, with unresolved integrity questions.

Blue carbon is carbon stored or sequestered in coastal and marine ecosystems such as mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrasses.

A critical term for presenting an organisation as more socially responsible, ethical or aligned with recognised social principles than its underlying conduct and evidence justify.

Generic, reusable reporting language that could apply to many organisations and therefore provides little entity-specific information about material sustainability circumstances, decisions or performance.

The valuation penalty or higher cost of capital applied to carbon-intensive ("brown") assets and firms — the mirror image of the "greenium" paid for green assets.

A buffer pool is a reserve of credits or units set aside to manage reversal, non-permanence or other integrity risks in a crediting system.

Fundamental change to how a firm creates, delivers and captures value so that the model itself generates positive environmental and social outcomes rather than treating them as add-ons.

California law requiring companies with over five hundred million dollars in revenue to publish biennial reports on climate-related financial risks and adaptation measures.

Cap and trade is a policy design that limits total permitted emissions and allows covered entities to trade emission allowances within that cap.

Carbon farming is the use of land management practices intended to reduce emissions or increase carbon storage in soils, vegetation or agricultural systems.

Carbon leakage is the risk that emissions are displaced rather than reduced when production, investment or demand shifts to places with weaker or different climate constraints.

The body of standards, labels and claims rules ensuring that carbon credits represent real, additional, permanent emissions reductions or removals — and are used credibly.

A carbon registry is a system that records carbon units, ownership, transfers, retirements and project information to support traceability and avoid double counting.

European Union regulation establishing a voluntary certification framework for carbon removals, carbon farming and carbon storage in products.

A carbon credit issued for actively removing CO₂ from the atmosphere — priced far above avoidance credits and increasingly mandated as the end-state of credible offset portfolios.

Scheduling or relocating computing workloads to times and places where grid electricity is cleanest — cutting the carbon footprint of digital services without new hardware.

The paid and unpaid labour of caring for people — childcare, eldercare, health and domestic work — recognised by the ILO as a distinct, under-valued pillar of economies.

The exhaustion and disengagement of producers and consumers facing a proliferation of overlapping sustainability certification schemes.

The structured management of the people, process and cultural transition required for an organisation to adopt and sustain a materially different way of working.

A metric quantifying the total mass of chemicals of high concern in a company's products, operations and supply chain — pioneered by the Chemical Footprint Project.

A senior executive role responsible for integrating material sustainability issues into strategy, governance, organisational performance and external accountability.

An emerging vision term extending the circular economy beyond materials and business models to whole-of-society transformation, including justice, governance and wellbeing.

A Claims Code of Practice is a set of rules or guidance for making sustainability or climate claims in a way that is clear, evidenced and not misleading.

The Clean Industrial Deal is an EU policy framework linking industrial competitiveness and decarbonisation through measures for energy-intensive industry, clean technology and circularity.

The grief felt in response to experienced or anticipated ecological losses from climate change — of species, ecosystems, landscapes and ways of life.

Climate scenario analysis is a structured exercise that tests how different plausible climate-related futures could affect strategy, financial position, operations or resilience.

A forward-looking financial metric estimating the present-value impact of climate change on a company or portfolio.

An estimate of how much portfolio or asset value is at risk from climate change — physical damage and transition shocks priced into financial terms.

A collaborative process in which relevant actors jointly shape a solution, intervention or decision rather than merely commenting on a design produced elsewhere.

A group of organisations or actors that deliberately combine influence, resources or expertise around a shared sustainability objective while retaining their separate identities.

A declared obligation to pursue a defined sustainability objective, backed by sufficient governance, resources and accountability to make delivery a real organisational responsibility.

A community-authored statement of its values, customary laws and rights, used to assert terms of engagement over lands and traditional knowledge.

The ability of a community to prepare for, withstand, adapt to and recover from shocks and stresses.

A compliance carbon market is a regulated system where covered entities must surrender allowances or credits to meet legal emissions obligations.

The use of AI tools such as camera-trap image recognition and acoustic sensors in wildlife protection and anti-poaching.

A structured process in which an organisation seeks stakeholder views early enough to inform a decision and then considers and responds to that input.

A contribution claim states that an organisation has supported a climate or sustainability outcome without claiming that the contribution neutralises or offsets its own impact.

The process by which separate sustainability standards, practices, expectations or methods become more similar or compatible over time.

Core Carbon Principles are integrity criteria used to assess whether carbon credits meet threshold expectations for governance, emissions impact and sustainable development safeguards.

Corresponding adjustments are accounting adjustments used under international climate accounting to avoid double counting of transferred mitigation outcomes between countries.

Credit retirement is the act of permanently taking a carbon credit out of circulation so it can no longer be transferred or used for another claim.

A crediting period is the defined time during which an activity can generate credits under a programme, methodology or approval.

The decline in responsiveness, care or cooperation that can occur when people or organisations face repeated, overlapping or poorly coordinated requests for sustainability information.

Attempts to create functional proxies of extinct species through back-breeding, cloning or genome engineering — guided by IUCN principles and contested in conservation.

Digital resources — software, data, knowledge — that are collectively produced, owned and governed by communities under open licences.

The responsible design, use and disposal of digital technologies to minimise their environmental footprint — energy, materials and e-waste.

Digital tagging is the process of attaching machine-readable labels to reported information so that it can be searched, compared and processed more efficiently.

Durability is the extent to which a claimed climate or sustainability outcome is expected to last without being reversed, weakened or materially undermined over the relevant time horizon.

The principle that the materiality of sustainability issues is not fixed: issues migrate from impact to financial materiality as contexts, evidence and expectations change.

The Earth Commission's 2023 extension of planetary boundaries, adding justice criteria — limits that avoid significant harm to people as well as Earth-system stability.

Embodied carbon is the greenhouse gas emissions associated with materials, production, transport, construction or other lifecycle stages before or beyond operational use.

An emission allowance is a permission or unit issued under a regulated emissions trading system that authorises the holder to emit a specified quantity within the scheme rules.

Designing, manufacturing, using and disposing of computing equipment and software to minimise energy use and environmental impact.

A documented approach that specifies why, with whom, when and how an organisation will engage stakeholders, what can be influenced, and how input will affect decisions and follow-up.

Engineered carbon removals are technology-based approaches intended to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it durably.

A carbon dioxide removal method that spreads crushed silicate rock on land to accelerate natural CO2-absorbing weathering.

The process by which firms in global value chains improve environmental performance in their production systems and practices.

An analyst who evaluates environmental, social and governance information to assess risks, opportunities, performance or value for a defined decision-making purpose.

An ESG rating is an assessment by a provider of an organisation's environmental, social and governance profile, usually based on the provider's own methodology.

An ESG score is a numerical or categorical expression of an environmental, social and governance assessment, usually dependent on a specific methodology and data set.

European Union regulation prohibiting products made with forced labour from being placed on or exported from the EU market.

Ex-ante credits are credits or units issued or sold before the underlying emissions reduction or removal has fully occurred or been verified.

Ex-post credits are credits issued after the underlying emissions reduction or removal has occurred and has been verified under the applicable rules.

A wage judged fair against both the worker's needs and the value of the work performed — the bridge concept between minimum and living wages.

An organisation that adopts a materially new sustainability practice, standard or market position earlier than most peers and therefore faces distinctive risks and potential advantages.

A condition in which sustainability requirements, systems, data or responsibilities are divided across overlapping or inconsistent arrangements that make coherent action harder.

Designing AI systems to achieve acceptable performance with minimal data, compute and energy, countering ever-larger models.

Proposed legally binding UN treaty on plastic pollution across the full plastics lifecycle. Negotiations remain unfinished, with the next formal session scheduled for March 2027.

Gold Standard is a certification and crediting standard used for climate and sustainable-development projects that meet its programme requirements.

Proposed European Union directive on substantiating and verifying explicit environmental claims. Negotiations were suspended in 2025 after the Commission announced an intention to withdraw it; the formal EU procedure remains listed as ongoing.

Greenhushing is the practice of reducing, withholding or avoiding public communication about sustainability activity, often because of legal, reputational or credibility concerns.

A cognitive bias in which a strong positive or negative impression in one area disproportionately influences judgement about other, less directly evidenced attributes.

The coordinated reduction of unnecessary differences between standards, methods, definitions or requirements so that systems can work together more consistently.

ICVCM is the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, an independent governance initiative focused on quality and integrity signals for voluntary carbon credits.

The use of impact language or claims that overstate, mischaracterise or insufficiently evidence the positive change attributable or contributable to an organisation, investment, product or programme.

The distance between an agreed policy, standard, strategy or commitment and the capabilities, actions and results achieved in practice.

Improved forest management is a change in forest management intended to increase carbon storage, reduce emissions or improve forest outcomes relative to a baseline.

Insetting is the use of emissions reduction or removal activities within an organisation’s own value chain, often in contrast to offsetting outside that value chain.

Integrated reporting is an approach to corporate reporting that connects financial and non-financial information to explain how an organisation creates, preserves or erodes value over time.

The combined people, knowledge, processes, systems, decision rights and organisational routines that allow an organisation to perform sustainability work reliably without excessive dependence on individual...

An internal carbon price is a price an organisation applies inside decision-making to reflect the cost, risk or strategic value of greenhouse gas emissions.

An internationally transferred mitigation outcome is a quantified mitigation outcome transferred between countries under Article 6 accounting arrangements.

An organisation or actor that adopts a relevant sustainability practice substantially later than peers, market expectations or the evolving level of required performance.

A coordinated, place-based effort in which multiple actors work across land uses and jurisdictions to improve shared environmental, social and economic outcomes within a defined landscape.

A relative claim that an organisation performs, acts or influences at a level meaningfully ahead of prevailing peers or expectations on a defined sustainability issue.

The gradual, insufficiently governed expansion of what an organisation labels material, often causing a prioritisation tool to lose its ability to distinguish what matters most.

A facilitated session used to examine evidence, perspectives and thresholds relevant to a materiality assessment; it is an input to materiality judgement, not the judgement itself.

Measurement, reporting and verification is the system used to quantify, document, review and confirm emissions, reductions, removals or other performance claims.

An organised forum or governance arrangement in which actors from different sectors or interest groups work over time on a shared sustainability problem.

Qualitative reporting that explains the context, strategy, governance, risks, impacts, judgements and relationships behind sustainability metrics and other disclosed information.

Non-financial reporting is disclosure about environmental, social, governance and other matters that are not expressed solely through traditional financial statements.

An offsetting claim states that a quantified impact has been counterbalanced by a corresponding credit, reduction or removal elsewhere, subject to the quality of the evidence and accounting boundary.

An omnibus simplification package is a legislative package that amends multiple related rules with the stated aim of reducing complexity, overlap or administrative burden.

Operational carbon is the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the use and operation of an asset, building, product or service over time.

Over-crediting occurs when credits or claimed reductions exceed the environmental benefit that can reasonably be attributed to the activity.

Phantom credits are credits that appear to represent an environmental benefit but lack credible evidence that the benefit occurred, was additional, or was not already claimed elsewhere.

A contested term for using 'pink' cause association to project social responsibility or progressiveness without corresponding substantive action; its meaning varies across breast-cancer, LGBTQ+ and...

A public promise or declaration of intended future action, usually expressed before the full delivery pathway has been completed.

Cooperation between organisations that normally compete, focused on shared sustainability challenges where collective action can improve conditions without removing legitimate market competition.

Anxiety, grief and intrusive imagery about anticipated future climate catastrophes — a trauma-like response to events that have not yet happened.

Adopting the language of social or environmental purpose without changing underlying business conduct — a cousin of greenwashing.

A dynamic in which competition for cost, investment or market share creates pressure to weaken, avoid or under-enforce environmental, social or governance protections.

A dynamic in which competition, regulation, buyer expectations or collective norms encourage organisations or jurisdictions to raise sustainability performance rather than compete by lowering standards.

The use of LGBTQ+ or Pride symbols and messages to present an organisation as inclusive or supportive when its policies, practices, political activity or sustained contribution do not substantiate that image.

Eliminating emissions directly rather than balancing them with offsets — a deliberate contrast to offset-reliant net zero.

REDD+ refers to policy and project approaches intended to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and support conservation, sustainable management and forest carbon stocks.

Reforestation is the re-establishment of forest on land that was previously forested, subject to the definition, baseline and timeframe used.

Certification schemes that verify regenerative farming outcomes — soil health, biodiversity, animal welfare — where no single agreed standard yet exists.

A business that aims to restore and enrich the social and ecological systems it touches, rather than merely minimising its harm.

The time, cost and organisational effort required to collect, validate, reconcile, govern and disclose information in response to reporting expectations.

A Representative Concentration Pathway is a greenhouse gas concentration trajectory used in climate modelling to describe possible levels of radiative forcing over time.

Funding mechanisms for restoring ecosystems — from public grants and carbon credits to biodiversity credits and blended structures.

Reversal risk is the possibility that a stored, avoided or reduced environmental impact is later undone, reducing the reliability of the original claim.

An organisation or actor that must respond to sustainability rules, standards or market requirements it had limited ability to shape.

A shareholder vote on a company's climate transition plan, applying the say-on-pay model to decarbonisation strategy.

The discrepancy between what an organisation publicly says it will do or values and what its decisions, resources and observable behaviour actually demonstrate.

The Science Based Targets Network develops methods for companies and cities to set science-based targets for nature across freshwater, land, biodiversity and ocean systems.

The uncontrolled expansion of a project, programme or workstream beyond its agreed objectives and boundaries without corresponding decisions on resources, time, accountability or trade-offs.

The selective or symbolic use of the Sustainable Development Goals to imply meaningful contribution without evidence that strategy, impacts, targets and performance have materially changed.

US Securities and Exchange Commission rule, adopted in 2024 and never implemented, that would have required climate-risk and emissions disclosures; formally proposed for rescission in 2026.

A coordinated programme, standard, platform or commitment designed to address sustainability issues across a defined industry or value-chain sector.

A shadow carbon price is a notional carbon cost used to test investments, plans or choices without necessarily creating an internal fee or transfer of money.

A Shared Socioeconomic Pathway is a scenario storyline describing possible social, economic and demographic conditions that shape future emissions, vulnerability and adaptation capacity.

A rechargeable battery chemistry using abundant sodium instead of lithium — cheaper and more secure, at lower energy density.

Soil organic carbon is the carbon contained in soil organic matter and used as an indicator in soil health, climate and land management discussions.

A high-temperature electrolysis technology producing green hydrogen at potentially the highest electrical efficiency.

A battery replacing liquid electrolyte with a solid — promising safer, denser energy storage for electric vehicles.

A structured process for identifying people and groups who affect, are affected by, or hold legitimate interests in a decision, and for understanding the relationships, rights, influence, knowledge and...

An organisation or authorised body that develops, maintains and revises standards or normative requirements through a defined governance process.

Stranded assets are assets whose expected value, use or economic life is reduced because external conditions change, including climate policy, market demand, technology or physical risk.

The ability to understand core sustainability concepts and interconnections, evaluate evidence and trade-offs, and apply that understanding to responsible decisions and action.

A manager who translates sustainability objectives into coordinated programmes, controls, data, responsibilities and operational improvement within an organisation.

A practitioner who applies sustainability knowledge, evidence and judgement to influence organisational decisions, manage impacts and enable change across environmental, social, economic and governance issues.

A sustainability statement is a structured part of corporate reporting that presents material sustainability information, often within or alongside annual management reporting.

Derivative instruments whose pricing or payoffs vary with sustainability performance — the frontier of sustainability-linked finance.

An umbrella for developing and deploying AI within environmental limits and social safeguards across its life cycle.

Albrecht's proposed successor to the Anthropocene — an envisioned era of mutually beneficial human-Earth relations.

A mode of compliance in which completing prescribed forms, controls or evidence becomes the objective, while the substantive risk, purpose or outcome behind the requirement receives insufficient attention.

Transition risk is the possibility that policy, market, technology, legal or reputational changes linked to a lower-carbon economy affect an organisation, asset, sector or value chain.

The UK's domestic endorsement of the ISSB's IFRS S1 and S2 standards for sustainability and climate disclosure.

VCMI is the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative, a governance initiative focused on how companies make credible claims when using voluntary carbon credits.

Verified Carbon Standard refers to a carbon-crediting programme used to issue verified units from projects or activities that meet its rules and methodologies.

Verra is a standards organisation associated with carbon and sustainability programmes, including the Verified Carbon Standard.

A credit vintage identifies the period in which the emissions reduction or removal represented by a carbon credit occurred or was verified.

The public expression of socially valued positions in a way that observers may interpret as primarily intended to demonstrate the speaker's or organisation's virtue rather than to create corresponding...

The voluntary carbon market is the market where organisations or individuals buy and sell carbon credits outside mandatory compliance schemes.

A use-of-proceeds bond whose proceeds finance water-related projects such as supply, sanitation, wastewater treatment, flood protection and sustainable water infrastructure.

The application of circular economy principles to water, keeping water in use for as long as possible through reuse, recycling, recovery and regeneration.

A claimed state in which an activity's water footprint is reduced as far as possible and the residual footprint is offset through investment in water conservation or restoration.

A corporate commitment to return more water to watersheds than an organisation consumes, through efficiency, reuse and replenishment projects in water-stressed basins.

The termination of a sustainability certificate by the certification body or scheme owner, removing the holder's right to make certified claims.

A documented plan for managing the impacts of decarbonisation and restructuring on a company's workforce, covering reskilling, redeployment, job quality and social dialogue.

A state or claim in which an activity, building or system produces no carbon dioxide emissions in its operation, distinct from net zero accounting that permits offsets.

A claim that a product, process or activity releases no greenhouse gas or pollutant emissions within a defined boundary, typically the point of use.

A commitment under which no deforestation at all occurs in production or sourcing, without relying on restoration or offsetting elsewhere to balance clearing.

A proposed — and widely used but formally rejected — name for a geological epoch defined by dominant human influence on Earth's systems.

A holistic farming system rooted in Rudolf Steiner's 1924 lectures — treating the farm as a self-contained living organism — certified worldwide under the Demeter label.

An Indigenous Andean concept of collective well-being in harmony with nature — "living well" rather than "living better" — constitutionalised in Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009).

A critical term for the extraction of data from people and territories, echoing historical resource colonialism.

Efforts to confront and dismantle colonial structures within conservation and sustainability — from fortress conservation to knowledge hierarchies — restoring Indigenous governance and rights.

A school of thought advocating an equitable downscaling of production and consumption in wealthy economies to bring throughput back within ecological limits.