What BeCause does
BeCause is a startup enterprise software company that enables sustainability data to flow simpler, faster, and cheaper. BeCause’s AI-powered Sustainability Management Hub frees up resources and increases revenue and profits, allowing travel and tourism companies to make a greater real-world impact through their sustainability efforts.
BeCause Current Landscape
The travel industry accounts for 8% of global carbon emissions, even as travel brands engage in sustainability efforts and consumers increasingly prioritize sustainable travel. However, it’s been difficult for brands to collect and communicate their sustainability data due to complex, manual processes. Between the inefficiency of present-state data collection and the missed revenue due to an inability to communicate sustainability credentials to potential guests, it’s estimated that current sustainability management processes are costing hotels alone $21B per year.
BeCause automates processes, reducing redundancies like double-accounting, and streamlining the transmission of sustainability data across travel brands, certification entities and distributors. One of BeCause’s differentiators is its “hub” approach, which allows data to be re-used synergistically across many workflows, actors, and stakeholders. This creates a connected, holistic ecosystem of sustainability management capabilities tailored to travel and tourism companies, which are often challenged by limitations on time, resources, and expertise. The BeCause solution simplifies complexity for sustainability managers and helps them do more with the time and assets available to them.
Company Birth Story
The idea behind BeCause and its mission for the travel and tourism industry began when company founder Frederik Steensgaard was just a child growing up in Oman. He had the opportunity to attend school with people from all over the world and explore the beautiful local coral reef. However, he also witnessed the unfortunate consequences of climate change as the reef began to warm up and disappear. Following the tragic events of 9/11, Frederik was inspired to make a positive impact on the world and promote social cohesion. He wanted to tackle sustainability problems and create a startup that could connect the supply and demand for sustainable practices. Frederik studied business, sociology, and entrepreneurship, gaining the skills necessary to build a successful startup.
While working at Demant Group, Frederik met Jonas Bruun Jacobsen, a software architect who shared his passion for sustainability and belief in the power of technology to connect people and promote sustainable practices. Jonas had also experienced the frustration of market failure preventing the connection between supply and demand for sustainable solutions. Through their shared vision and expertise, they founded BeCause with a mission to create an IT infrastructure that connects sustainability ecosystems and enables the tourism and travel industry to make a positive impact on the environment. They recognized that the industry could serve as a catalyst for change by bringing people together and fostering understanding and cooperation.
Team Culture
The company has assembled a team of accomplished professionals with extensive experience in sustainability, travel, technology, and business. They have also secured backing from investors with a track record of scaling successful platforms and formed strategic partnerships with influential players in the tourism industry.
The Solution
BeCause is committed to helping companies integrate sustainability seamlessly into their business operations by offering them the necessary tools and resources to manage sustainability data efficiently and leverage it to create competitive advantages. Despite the widespread interest in sustainability, facilitating reliable communication between travelers, travel companies, and certification entities remains a significant challenge. BeCause aims to facilitate successful connections while promoting sustainability in the travel industry. The company enables individual hotels to communicate their sustainability data automatically, in real-time to distributors like booking.com, making it easier for consumers to find and book sustainable stays.
BeCause’s proprietary technology consists of a refined mix of the industry’s most efficient mapping algorithms, the most complete data sharing infrastructure, workflow automations that understand sustainability management in and across organizations, and an A.I. assistant making tailored predictions and recommendations based on a uniquely comprehensive database of sustainability certified hotels (the world’s biggest, in fact).
A Customer Story
One of the world’s leading digital travel platforms, Booking.com saw firsthand the rising demand for sustainable accommodations among its customer base. It implemented the Travel Sustainable badge in 2021 to give travelers a transparent, consistent, and easy-to-understand way to identify sustainable stays at more than 95,000 lodging properties worldwide. Booking.com’s processes for collecting and managing the data that underpin its Travel Sustainable ranking were manual and periodic. They needed an efficient, scalable solution to collect data from accommodations certified by UN’s Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GTSC) recognized standards, among others. BeCause’s cloud platform replaced Booking.com’s manual processes with automated sustainability data transfers and mapped standards from 50+ certifications that align with GTSC criteria to the data provided by tens of thousands of individual hotel properties worldwide, providing a complete and accurate picture of the accommodations available on Booking.com.
“BeCause removes and moves resources to where we excel. We get real-time & accurate data that we put in front of our customers. Supporting the customers to make more informed decisions about their travel behavior.” - Thomas Loughlin, Sustainability Manager, Booking.com
A founder quote
“Too often, sustainability is seen as a burden, something challenging and costly for businesses to achieve, BeCause was built to challenge that perception, and by using advanced technologies and cross-sector best practices, we’re helping to make sustainability a no-brainer.” Frederik Steensgaard, CEO & Co-founder.
The consumer push for more sustainability in travel can mean big business for brands that put their practices — including respect for the environment, local culture, and social issues — front and center.
Today’s discerning traveler takes a lot more into consideration when booking a hotel than the quality of amenities or the property’s distance from attractions. With the tourism industry accounting for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention the well-documented impacts that travel can have on local cultures and ecosystems, travelers are increasingly looking for ways to satisfy their wanderlust in the most responsible way possible. In Booking.com’s recent annual sustainable travel report 78% of global travelers said they intend to stay in a sustainable property at least once this year, and 57% would feel better about staying in a specific accommodation if it had a sustainable certification.
The consumer push for more sustainability in travel can mean big business for brands that put their practices — including respect for the environment, local culture, and social issues — front and center. According to hospitality inventory distributor HotelBeds, consumers are up to four times more likely to book eco-certified hotels; they’re also willing to pay a premium to stay on properties that align with their environmental values. While most large hotel chains have made their sustainability credentials a core component of their brand identities, many others, including independent properties, lack the ability to efficiently communicate this value proposition. This prevents them from tapping into demand for sustainable accommodations and costs them room revenue.
The data reliability gap
Sustainability metrics are quite complex, and as the type and quantity of certifications increase, effective data management is only getting harder. Many hotels and hospitality brands can’t communicate the true value of their sustainability credentials because they lack the ability to map the results of their initiatives to recognized certification standards. One reason why: data tends to be collected and handled manually via spreadsheets, e-mails, and unconnected niche systems, which means data is usually out of date and fragmented by the time it reaches the end user.
There are also few direct, automated ways for communicating sustainability data to distribution partners like OTAs. With more than half of online hotel leisure sales passing through these entities, it’s clear that prioritizing this data transfer is crucial to providing potential guests with real-time information around a hotel’s sustainability practices and influencing their booking decisions.
The three C’s: Collect, connect, and communicate.
Larger hotel chains aren’t immune to inefficient sustainability data management. BeCause estimates that this alone is costing the industry an estimated $21 billion per year. Hotels that can address this issue will have an immediate competitive advantage.
Sustainability data management doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be hard. But it does require a technological approach and specialized knowledge, which can be challenging for hotels to develop in-house. So, hospitality groups that want to capitalize on the demand for sustainable travel options to drive more bookings should identify partners and solutions that can:
- Streamline and automate sustainability data collection at the combined property- and group-level;
- Remove redundancies in the certification process by integrating standards from various certifying bodies and allowing data to be automatically shared with these bodies;
- Connect and automate the dissemination of sustainability data to distribution channels like OTAs;
- Communicate that data to potential guests and in a more user-friendly way.
Travelers rely on accurate, trusted information to make their choices during booking. As sustainability becomes an increasingly important factor in their decision-making, hotels can tap into this demand to both grow revenue and tangibly advance their sustainability aims. Those that succeed in collecting and sharing real-time, reliable data about their sustainability initiatives with potential guests will emerge as leaders in an industry that has been eager to signal its commitment to sustainability but has struggled to translate that commitment into bottom-line performance. With travelers ready to reward hotels that can prove the real-world impact of their sustainability claims, is your property in the right position to reap those rewards?
About the Author
Frederik Steensgaard is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of BeCause, an AI-powered sustainability technology company that makes sustainability management flow simpler, faster, and cheaper for travel and tourism companies.Frederik is an elected member of the Climate Committee at the Danish Industry Federation, where he contributes to discussions and initiatives aimed at promoting sustainability.
In this month's blog article, we shed light on the significance of several important world awareness days in June. Our focus will be on World Environment Day, World Ocean's Day, World Day Against Child Labour, and World Rainforest Day. Discover why these days are important and learn how you can participate and contribute to these causes.
World Environment Day - 5th June
World Environment Day, celebrated on June 5th, is a global initiative led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to address critical environmental concerns. This year, Côte d'Ivoire is hosting the event in partnership with the Netherlands, focusing on the theme of #BeatPlasticPollution to tackle the worldwide plastic crisis. The staggering production of over 400 million tonnes of plastic annually, with less than 10 percent being recycled, poses a significant threat to ecosystems and human well-being.
Plastic pollution has pervasive effects on our food, water, and air, with humans consuming an estimated 50,000 plastic particles each year. Thankfully, viable solutions are within reach for governments, businesses, and individuals. Côte d'Ivoire has taken a leading role by banning plastic bags and promoting reusable packaging, while the Netherlands is committed to reducing single-use plastic consumption.
As individuals, we have a pivotal role in combating plastic pollution and building a sustainable future. By consciously avoiding single-use plastic and embracing reusable alternatives, such as bringing our own bags and reducing reliance on over-packaged products, we can make a significant impact. Opting for items with extended warranties and ensuring proper recycling practices further contribute to sustainability.
Sharing innovative solutions and initiatives that combat plastic pollution through social media platforms enhances awareness and inspires collective action. Additionally, actively participating in local clean-up efforts and supporting charities dedicated to solving the plastic pollution crisis directly contribute to the cause.
On World Environment Day, let us embrace these actions wholeheartedly and unite in our efforts to combat plastic pollution, safeguard our environment, and forge a sustainable future for all.
Read more here.
World Oceans Day - 8th June
World Oceans Day, celebrated on June 8th, is a global initiative that unites people around the world to protect and restore our precious blue planet. This year, the theme is "Planet Ocean: Tides Are Changing," emphasizing the need for collective action.
Recently, world leaders made a historic commitment known as 30x30, aiming to protect 30% of our planet's lands, waters, and oceans by 2030. This commitment is crucial to create a healthy ocean with thriving wildlife and to stabilize the climate. Currently, less than 17% of land and 8% of the ocean worldwide are protected. By supporting the 30x30 goal, we can safeguard our planet's life support systems, addressing critical issues of ocean health, climate change, and biodiversity.
The ocean is the life source of our planet, covering over 70% of its surface. It not only produces at least 50% of the world's oxygen but also supports a vast array of biodiversity and serves as the primary source of protein for over a billion people. Additionally, the ocean plays a crucial role in our economy, with millions of jobs relying on ocean-based industries. However, the ocean is currently in need of support, with 90% of big fish populations depleted and 50% of coral reefs destroyed. It is imperative that we work together to restore its vibrancy and ensure its sustainable future.
World Oceans Day serves as a reminder of the vital role oceans play in our daily lives. They are the lungs of our planet, providing food, medicine, and maintaining the delicate balance of the biosphere. The purpose of this day is to raise awareness about the impact of human actions on the ocean, foster a global movement for ocean conservation, and mobilize and unite people worldwide for the sustainable management of our oceans.
Read more here.
World Day Against Child Labour - 12th June
World Day Against Child Labour (WDACL), observed on June 12th, serves as a catalyst for the global movement against child labour. This year's theme, 'Social Justice for All. End Child Labour!', highlights the crucial link between social justice and the eradication of child labour.
Child labour remains a grave concern worldwide, with millions of children being deprived of their rights, education, and freedom. More than 160 million children, nearly one in ten globally, are currently engaged in child labour. Africa and Asia and the Pacific regions are most affected, accounting for a significant percentage of child labour cases.
To address this issue effectively, it is vital to focus on the root causes of child labour and work collectively towards a just and fair society for children. By prioritizing the well-being, education, and rights of children in all countries, we can create a future where every child can experience a childhood free from exploitation and have the opportunity to thrive.
There are several impactful ways to support World Day Against Child Labour. One important approach is to promote ethical consumption by choosing products and supporting brands that prioritize ethical sourcing and fair labor practices. By making conscious purchasing decisions and encouraging others to do the same, we can create a demand for goods that are free from child labour. Additionally, raising awareness about child labour and the significance of World Day Against Child Labour through social media, organizing community events, and engaging in conversations with friends and family can contribute to the global movement against child labour.
Read more here.
World Rainforest Day – 22nd June
World Rainforest Day, founded by Rainforest Partnership in 2017, is a global movement dedicated to celebrating the significance of healthy rainforests and taking action to protect and restore them. This year's theme, "Conserve. Restore. Regenerate.," highlights the urgent work required to ensure the long-term thriving of rainforests.
Rainforests are vital for climate stability, biodiversity, culture, and livelihoods. They provide a home to countless animal species, supply freshwater, and play a crucial role in maintaining a stable climate. However, deforestation poses a severe threat, with 1.5 hectares lost every second and 78 million hectares destroyed annually.
On June 22, World Rainforest Day brings together individuals and communities worldwide to raise awareness and inspire action. This day presents opportunities for you to participate and make a positive impact. Restoration and regeneration efforts can take various forms, such as tree planting, creating sustainable economic and agricultural systems, and removing pressures that impede nature's recovery.
You can contribute to World Rainforest Day by donating to reputable rainforest organizations or volunteering your time and skills to support their vital conservation and restoration efforts. Additionally, consider participating in tree planting initiatives in your local community or showing your support for them. These actions are just a few ways for you to help and contribute on World Rainforest Day.
Read more here.
By automating manual processes, reducing double-accounting, and streamlining the transmission of sustainability data across hospitality and travel brands, certification entities, and distributors, BeCause contributes to revenue growth.
Recently, AI startup BeCause announced a significant investment to help the company expand its commercial and product development offers. The company provides an AI-powered sustainability hub that simplifies, speeds up and reduces costs for sustainability management in the tourism industry. The company estimates that by eliminating 60% of the resources previously used for repetitive, error-prone manual administrative tasks, BeCause enables stakeholders to stay up to date with the latest sustainability improvements, resulting in a sixfold faster return on sustainability investments. To learn more about this company and its product, HT spoke with Frederik Steensgaard, CEO and Co-founder of BeCause.
Where did the idea for this business come from?
Despite the widespread interest in sustainability, facilitating reliable communication between travelers, travel companies and certification entities remains a significant challenge. BeCause was established with a vision to transform the way travel and tourism brands manage their sustainability initiatives and provide more sustainable options for travelers.
I grew up in different parts of this beautiful planet and have a passion for travelling. So, it’s been painful for me and co-founder, Jonas, to see what climate change is doing to the world. It frustrates us how sustainability is a massive and growing headache for companies to manage, holding them back, costing them fortunes, and preventing the connection between supply and demand for sustainable solutions. In response to these concerns, Jonas and I founded BeCause with a mission to create an IT infrastructure that connects sustainability ecosystems and enables the tourism and travel industry to make a positive impact on the environment. We are determined to make sustainability a no-brainer in tourism and recognize that the industry could serve as a catalyst for change by bringing people together, tangibly experiencing the environmental and social changes to our world and fostering sustainable actions & habits which can snowball – hereafter also from tourism into other parts of people’s lives.
So, we built a platform that now helps some of the world's leading travel & tourism companies improve their bottom line, while making a positive, real-world impact. These companies can integrate sustainability seamlessly into their business operations by using the necessary tools and resources offered by us to manage sustainability data efficiently and leverage it to create competitive advantages.
How does the technology work?
The BeCause technology framework modernizes the way travel & hospitality providers, distributors, and certification entities collaborate, resulting in accurate and reliable sustainability data for over 11,000 hotels and OTAs (Online Travel Agencies). By replacing outdated processes like spreadsheets and unconnected systems, BeCause streamlines and transforms the management of sustainability data, ensuring compliance and driving competitive advantage.
Utilizing mapping algorithms, data sharing infrastructure, workflow automations, and AI tools, BeCause simplifies the collection of complex data from multiple sources. This data is then synthesized and utilized efficiently across various operations, minimizing human effort while maximizing compliance.
Through the BeCause platform, companies can eliminate up to 60% of the resources previously allocated to repetitive and error-prone manual administrative tasks. This reduction in resource utilization translates into a significant positive impact on the environment, society, and overall profitability.
Why should hotels be interested in using it?
Sustainability can be a real competitive advantage for hotels, but reliably and efficiently communicating their eco-friendly credentials to potential guests is a persistent challenge. The opportunity in terms of occupancy and room revenue is tremendous – Booking.com research indicates that 78% of global travelers plan on staying in a sustainable property at least once this year, while 57% would feel better about staying in a specific accommodation if it had a sustainable certification. Other studies find that travelers are four times more likely to book eco-labeled hotels. On the expense side of the ledger, ineffective sustainability management is costing hotel and travel brands over $8 billion each year, in addition to missed revenues of at least $13 billion annually based on our industry estimates.
BeCause offers hotels and travel companies a solution to eliminate redundancies in sustainability data collection and reporting. By automating manual processes, reducing double-accounting, and streamlining the transmission of sustainability data across hospitality and travel brands, certification entities, and distributors, BeCause creates efficiencies that not only contribute to revenue growth but also have a positive ecological impact.
While many companies still rely on labor-intensive manual processes and spreadsheets, our AI-powered platform provides a centralized and automated solution for managing sustainability. Hotels and other travel companies can efficiently collect, coordinate, and communicate sustainability data in one place, resulting in cost savings and tangible impacts on the planet, people, and profits.
With BeCause, hotel users can seamlessly gather complex information from multiple sources, leverage mapping algorithms to transform & analyze the data, and effortlessly put that data to work wherever, whenever, and how however it is needed across all channels, stakeholder formats, and workflows such as ecolabel certification. All with maximum compliance and minimal human effort. Additionally, our AI assistant utilizes an extensive database to provide tailored predictions and recommendations to sustainability managers, offering a unique level of insight and support not found in any other solution.
What are some real-life use cases for how hotels are using it now?
Let’s take an example of the current manual processes hotels must undergo to manage their sustainability data. The sustainability manager from a major hotel chain, must get all 1,000 properties in his hotel group to collect updated, valid sustainability metrics, get recertified by Green Key, then share that data both upwards to corporate stakeholders and outwards to Booking.com and hundreds of other OTAs and distribution channels. If he’s not working with BeCause, then the manager does all of this via spreadsheets, emails, and unconnected niche systems. The same applies to his counterparts at Green Key and Booking.com, both of whom need to handle millions of individual hotels working with the same wildly inefficient tools. The result is that hotels that actually are embracing sustainable practices in a substantive way wouldn't appear that way to travelers browsing an OTA until many months later. Naturally, this is bad for business.
BeCause allows all of these sustainability professionals to add their data ONCE, and then without further effort repurpose it across overlapping workflows. This streamlines compliance, certification, and reporting standards, eliminates double work, and reduces human errors. Most importantly, it speeds up the process for everyone involved, letting sustainability data flow freely from hotel to certification entity to distributor - and ultimately to the end user, the traveler.
BeCause Secures High-Profile Backers, Setting Stage for Rapid Expansion and Business Model Validation
Copenhagen, Denmark, May 17, 2023 – BeCause, the trailblazing startup transforming how the hospitality, travel, and tourism industries manage their sustainability data, has announced a significant early investment from renowned Danish entrepreneurs-turned-investors Carsten Mahler and Daniel Heskia. The $450,000 investment provides important financial backing for the Danish company’s next phase and brings valuable strategic guidance and advice from seasoned investors known for identifying successful enterprises and generating significant returns.
The startup’s AI-powered sustainability hub simplifies, speeds up, and reduces costs for sustainability management in the tourism industry, freeing up resources and allowing for greater real-world impact. By eliminating 60% of the resources previously used for repetitive, error-prone manual administrative tasks, BeCause enables stakeholders to stay up to date with the latest sustainability improvements, resulting in a sixfold faster return on sustainability investments. This improvement ultimately leads to a significant increase in bottom-line profits, potentially amounting to millions of dollars for a typical hotel chain in the first year alone.
“Since our founding, we’ve already attracted some of the world’s leading travel and tourism brands, including Booking.com, GreenKey and other leading travel & tourism companies, all of whom believe in our platform’s ability to transform their approach to sustainability and are committed to providing sustainable options to travelers while improving how their companies manage their sustainability efforts more efficiently,” said says Frederik Rubens Steensgaard, CEO and Co-founder of BeCause.
Solving the $21 billion problem in sustainability management
The investment, secured ahead of the startup’s official seed round opening, enables BeCause to expand its commercial and product development efforts with added resources and runway. “Ineffective sustainability management is costing hotel and travel brands over $8 billion each year, in addition to missed revenues of at least $13 billion annually based on our industry estimations,” added Steensgaard. “This early investment addresses a significant need in the industry and helps support our mission of making sustainability management simpler, faster and cheaper so that tourism companies can make a tangible impact on people, the planet and their profits.”
BeCause is also participating in the Alchemist Accelerator, a global top-ten incubator for enterprise software startups whose Demo Day, scheduled for May 30, has historically attracted more than 400 investors seeking high-impact opportunities.
A shared vision for a sustainable future in travel, tourism and beyond
Investors Mahler and Heskia have a track record of founding successful companies, including FundConnect, which before its acquisition, provided data management and reporting solutions for the financial sector and is now Europe's preferred neutral fund data infrastructure. The investors' success with FundConnect, which manages financial data similarly to how BeCause handles sustainability data, highlights their expertise in creating and scaling digital ecosystems. It also points to the potential of future applications for BeCause’s sustainability data solutions beyond the travel and tourism sector.
The investment also comes at a time when the market for sustainability data solutions is maturing. Over the last 24 months, regulations and supply chain pressures have spurred demand for the solutions BeCause has developed – AI-enabled automation and streamlining of sustainability data and workflows across multiple stakeholders.
The startup’s technology framework connects certification entities such as Green Key and travel providers and distributors, enabling over 10,000 hotels and OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) to provide travelers with accurate and reliable sustainability data. These processes, traditionally handled via spreadsheets, emails and unconnected niche systems, are ripe for transformation, and the need to manage them efficiently to ensure compliance and competitive advantage is fueling BeCause’s growth.
Cross-sector expertise and guidance
“We see the potential impact of BeCause’s sustainability data management hub can have on businesses, and we believe in their unique approach to applying these principles to sustainability," says Carsten Mahler, former CEO of FundConnect and Danske Invest, one of the largest and oldest mutual funds in the Nordics. "We are excited to join Frederik and his team on this journey and provide guidance and support to help them achieve their profit with a purpose-driven goal. We have been impressed by the team.”
The investment was made through Prolab Holding, an entity held by Mahler and Heskia. Other investors in BeCause include Innovation Fund Denmark, Alchemist Accelerator, the Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship, Vækstfonden, and Corde Invest.
For more information about BeCause or to speak with CEO and Co-founder Frederik Steensgaard, please contact Vanessa Horwell at vhorwell@thinkinkpr.com.
About BeCause
BeCause is an enterprise software company that enables sustainability data to flow simpler, faster and cheaper, so tourism companies can impact people, planet and their profits. The BeCause Sustainability Management Hub allows participating companies to collect and display all their communication about their sustainability efforts in one place, empowering them to make sustainability manageable for their operations and a competitive advantage for their business. BeCause provides the sustainability data flow that helps power part of Booking.com’s Travel Sustainable program and works with over 11,000+ companies including; sustainability-certified hotels, eco-labels, certification entities like GreenKey, industry partners including UN GSTC and marketplaces including Booking.com. For more information, visit because.eco.
While attending Stockholm Climate Week and participating in the events related to the various topics covered, we were reminded of the importance of this annual event. No surprise, as any other conference on the topic of climate, Stockholm Climate Week highlights the need to take action to address the environmental challenges we face, from climate change and pollution to deforestation and habitat loss. Attending the events got us thinking about what we can do in our own lives to help protect the Earth and create a more sustainable future for all. It reinforced the message that every action counts, no matter how small, and that we all have a role to play in protecting our planet.
Global climate change mitigation, among other human-enforced environmental problems, is a complex and multifaceted topic that requires action on multiple fronts. During talks from UNEP, the six areas of concentration were once more highlighted and supported by a provided roadmap for addressing the world's most pressing environmental challenges, climate change is one of these, of course. These talks emphasized the importance of government action in implementing the necessary changes to address the present issues but also noted that businesses and individuals have a role to play. By focusing on these six areas - climate change, post-conflict and disaster management, ecosystem management, environmental governance, harmful substances, and resource efficiency/sustainable consumption and production - we can create a more sustainable future for all. The talks from UNEP served as a reminder that it will take a collective effort from all stakeholders to protect the planet and ensure a sustainable future for generations to come.
And while we expect governments to take the lead on addressing climate change and implementing policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, private investments play an increasingly important role in driving change. Private investors have the potential to channel capital towards sustainable projects, businesses and technologies, and encourage the adoption of best practices in the corporate sector. In many cases, private investments can be more agile and responsive to market conditions than government policies, making them a critical component of the global effort to mitigate climate change.
Investing with intent is a crucial topic that has garnered significant attention in recent years, including this conference. Talks on this subject have highlighted the power that investments with sustainability parameters hold in driving positive change. It has become clear, also to the delight of BeCause, that SaaS tools are essential in supporting green funds and facilitating the complex processes involved in assessing potential investments. These processes include analytics for climate risk management and scenario analysis and forward-looking tools to manage portfolios' pathways to net zero, among others.
The EU Taxonomy is also an essential tool within the EU to encourage investors to create greener portfolios. This classification system establishes a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities and plays a critical role in scaling up sustainable investment and implementing the European Green Deal. The EU Taxonomy provides appropriate definitions for which economic activities are considered environmentally sustainable, creating security for investors, protecting them from greenwashing, helping companies become more climate-friendly, mitigating market fragmentation, and shifting investments where they are most needed.
To invest with intent and be aligned with the EU Taxonomy or other regulations outside the EU, investors should also consider various factors, such as assessing portfolio exposure to carbon-intensive issuers and visualizing companies' future emissions trajectories, exploring climate risk and opportunities, performing climate-related scenario analysis, and modeling exposure to climate transition and physical risk. Additionally, investors should analyze data to gain insights into climate exposure trends, track progress toward targets, identify issuers for engagement, and compare portfolios to benchmarks.
While the various actions required to mitigate climate change might seem daunting, the situation is not as grim as might seem, and as we reflect on the importance of, for example, Earth Day and the need to protect our planet, it's clear that we have the tools and knowledge we need to make a difference.
The challenge lies in overcoming the inertia that comes with not feeling the threat as acutely as we should. We must recognize that the choices we make every day, from the investments we make to the products we buy, to the ways we consume energy, of which all, have an impact on the environment. We have the power to implement the solutions we already have and strive towards perfecting them, but it requires a collective effort and a commitment to change. As we move forward, let us remember that the choice is ours to make and that we all have a role to play in protecting the Earth for generations to come.
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