The industry has been abuzz with talks of deploying AI for Net Zero and beyond. In a recent BCG survey of climate change and AI experts, 87% of executives agreed that AI has the potential to accelerate climate action across mitigation, adaptation, and education.

Beyond the hype, how can AI help companies decarbonize? Read on for insights and proven tactics from:

• Toby Martin Hughes, Product Director at Reckitt
• Olivier Kahn, Partner at BCG & BCG X
• Thierry Danse, Software Engineer at CO2 AI
• Dr. Ramana Gudipudi, Head of Sustainability, CO2 AI

Deploying AI for climate action: where are the opportunities?

AI's impact on climate action can be divided into three core areas: -

Mitigation

Mitigations refer to the reduction and removal of emissions. For mitigation, AI solutions help with precise measurement, reduction, and optimization of emissions—from individual actions to corporate operations. The ability to analyze complex climate data in near real-time means that emission hotspots can be identified and mitigated effectively.

Adaptation and resilience

The UNFCCC defines adaptation and resilience as “changes in processes, practices, and structures to moderate potential damages or to benefit from opportunities associated with climate change.” On the adaptation front, AI helps prepare for and respond to inevitable climate shifts by modeling possible future scenarios. This is crucial for ensuring that both companies and nations can navigate changes in resource availability or environmental conditions smoothly.

Foundational capabilities

Finally, AI's foundational role supports breakthrough innovations, providing computational power and advanced simulations that are essential for developing solutions such as energy management improvements and climate-resilient technologies.

These three areas together position AI as a cornerstone for future climate resilience, offering not just immediate gains but laying the groundwork for continued progress.

Understanding the data challenge in sustainability

Despite the promise of AI-powered solutions, many enterprises struggle with the foundational steps required to maximize their potential for climate action. The reality is that large enterprises often face significant challenges in measuring and tracking their emissions accurately. Some of these challenges include:

How Reckitt uses AI to reduce emissions

Reckitt is on a mission to cut its emissions by 50% by 2030 and achieve Net Zero by 2040. To support this ambitious goal, Reckitt has partnered with CO2 AI and Quantis to enhance the precision of its emissions data.

In 2023, this collaboration led to the collection of over 300,000 additional data points, significantly refining their baseline measurements. Within just two months of CO2 AI deployment, Reckitt achieved precise emissions data for each of its 25,000 products, improving the overall accuracy of its emissions footprint by 75 times.

This level of granularity is pivotal for pinpointing emissions hotspots and identifying the most impactful reduction initiatives, allowing Reckitt to take decisive action toward meeting its sustainability targets.

AI’s role in faster and more accurate carbon footprints

CO2 AI's proprietary Gen AI solution helps large corporations obtain faster and more accurate carbon footprints. It analyzes millions of lines of corporate activity data to match individual Emission Factors (EF),  from a world-leading database of over 110,000 factors.

Using a refined version of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) that leverages vectorial searches through multiple embedding models, CO2 AI can find and match emissions data with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

• Speed:  Build a baseline in hours, versus months previously. 
• Accuracy: Each line of activity is matched with the most relevant EFs from an extensive database.
• Confidence: Automating data sanity checks reduces the risk of manual errors.
• Scalability: No limit on the number of activity lines analyzed.
• Cost efficiency: Only one AI engineer is required versus a large team of experts typically needed for manual categorization.

AI to accelerate decarbonization

AI has always been at the heart of how CO2 AI tackles carbon emissions by using it to address two fundamental pillars. First, by leveraging it to enhance accuracy in measuring activities and finding Emission Factor (EF) matches. Second, by employing it to identify high-impact reduction levers. Watch our on-demand webinar below to learn more.