Project Frame Annual Survey Results 2024
Published March 2024
The past year was record-breaking.
As 2023 became the planet’s hottest year recorded, both sea and greenhouse gas levels reached new highs while Antarctic sea ice continued to diminish.
And while many already face the burden of climate change daily—particularly those in the Global South—the impacts of human-induced warming are delayed, meaning that unless extreme action is taken, we have already set the worst consequences in motion.
These impacts can and will be made worse by focusing climate action on CO2 emissions alone. As Dr. Ilissa Ocko, Senior Climate Scientist at Environmental Defense Fund, told the Project Frame community at a meeting in December 2023, disaggregating greenhouse gas emission data is key to painting an accurate picture of the level of warming we are facing.
“What's at stake here, if we aren't mindful of these distinctions, is that we end up with suboptimal climate actions and missed opportunities to slow down warming,” she said.
It is both this urgency and this need for targeted climate actions that motivate us to bolster climate investors with best practices for forward-looking greenhouse gas impact measurement and management (IMM).
Project Frame (“Frame”) is a nonprofit program at Prime Coalition that, alongside our rapidly growing community, aims to mitigate climate change by driving capital toward the best possible climate solutions, backed by consensus-built emissions impact assessment standards that encourage transparency and accountability.
As of January 2024, the Project Frame community is 884 members strong, including 340 investment firms, representing $471.8B in venture and private equity assets under management.
We are grateful for the insights we received from 44 firms; it is your feedback that helps us drive change and establish the field-wide impact accountability needed to mitigate the catastrophic consequences of the climate crisis.
We are especially honored to learn that 90.9 percent of respondents use Frame as a resource and that 87.9 percent align with our values and principles.
Thank you for supporting our shared mission.
Key Takeaways
1. The current representation of firms by geographic region highlights a need for further inclusivity in both area of focus and investment firm headquarters location. We look forward to expanding our outreach to be more inclusive of investors outside the United States and Europe in the years ahead.
2. The majority (90.9%) of respondents state that they are looking for above-market rate returns. This indicates the appetite for a combined pro-climate and pro-market approaches, as well as the opportunity for growth among ‘impact-first’ investors willing to seek lower returns for higher emissions reduction performance.
3. The leading motivation for climate investors is concern for the environment. This is followed by firm competitiveness in attracting new/additional limited partners, personal financial interest, and anticipation of future regulation. Frame sees these motivations as unique leverage points to advance the adoption of best practices.
4. The majority of firms (85.3%) use in-house staff to lead their organization’s impact assessment/reporting work, indicating that Project Frame’s primary audience of VC and Private Equity firms benefits from our content and highlights the important role third-party verifiers can play in advancing impact accountability and transparency.
5. The majority of firms (88.2%) have adopted investment practices that align with Project Frame’s Principles, indicating broad alignment in community support for more reliable reporting and investments for the reduction of future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Conclusion
Thank you again to our contributors and our Project Frame community for their continued support and commitment to building the climate investing infrastructure we need to tackle the climate crisis.
Based on the feedback we received from this survey and reflections from the 2023-2024 Content Working Group, we hope to establish the survey as a valuable data source for the evolving landscape of climate investors. Our ambition is that the work of Project Frame will complement that of others to secure a livable climate and avert irreversible ecological damage for future generations, acknowledging that we are seeing in real-time how low-income and communities of color experience the “first and worst” consequences of climate change, while having contributed the least to it.
This is the second iteration of the survey. View the results from the inaugural 2023 survey on our website.
“The urgency of the climate crisis requires large-scale, rapid intervention but investments on their own aren't enough. It is energizing to see the Frame community grow and mobilize around our principles of transparency and accountability to ensure the solutions they invest in bring about the emissions impact our planet needs to thrive."
Sarah Kearney
Executive Director, Prime Coalition
About Project Frame
Project Frame (“Frame”) is a nonprofit program at Prime Coalition, purpose-built to organize investors around forward-looking emissions impact measurement and management (IMM) best practices.
Project Frame does not accept direct funding from its members. Rather, it operates through grants provided to Prime Coalition, the home of Project Frame. We thank those who wish to make a donation to support Prime Coalition’s work and join our shared mission to advance impact accountability in climate investing. Donations from Frame community members are anonymized to program staff.
