Climate Solutions Framework

Overview

The Climate Solutions Framework is the VCA's second major framework, designed as a companion to the Portfolio Alignment Framework. While the PAF focuses on managing any venture portfolio in alignment with net zero, the CSF is specifically for climate solutions companies — startups whose products or services directly deliver or contribute to positive climate outcomes. It was developed over 6+ months by the VCA Climate Solutions Methodology Working Group, with input from B Capital, Clean Energy Ventures, Eka VC, Energy Impact Partners, Future Energy Ventures, Galvanize, Just Climate, PRIME, Princeville Capital, S2G, World Fund, and 2150, drawing on guidance from GIIN, Impact Frontiers, Mission Innovation, Project Frame, IIGCC, Project Drawdown, and WBCSD. Version 1.0, May 2025.

The framework is a roadmap of impact practices — not an avoided emissions methodology, not a reporting framework, and not a climate solution definition framework. It's designed to help climate solutions companies embed impact practices that are commercially valuable in their own right: growing revenue through better product-market fit, managing reputational and impact-related risks, and positioning for funding from both impact and generalist investors. GPs can use it as a portfolio engagement guide to grow the impact and commercial success of their portfolio companies, reduce internal time spent on impact functions, foster alignment among co-investors, and demonstrate portfolio engagement and additionality to LPs.

How it works

The framework organizes impact practices across four dimensions — Define (understand your impact), Integrate (build impact into governance and strategy), Measure (quantify impact), and Mitigate (minimize risks to impact) — and phases them in across four commercialization stages.

Ideation stage companies have a business idea or early prototype and are typically seeking pre-seed or seed funding. At this stage, the framework asks companies to articulate their contribution to climate outcomes, identify metrics to measure impact, estimate the scale of the problem they're addressing, and identify potential unintended negative consequences like environmental damage, biodiversity loss, or embodied carbon in production.

Validation stage companies are developing pilot products and refining product-market fit, typically at Series A-B. The framework adds several practices: assessing stakeholder priorities, evaluating additional environmental and social benefits beyond the core climate outcome, integrating impact considerations into the business plan, building an impact governance structure (even if it starts as part-time responsibility), estimating unit-level impact relative to an appropriate baseline using tools like Project Frame, creating action plans to mitigate unintended negative consequences, and identifying impact-impeding factors like rebound effects, lock-in risks, or impact durability risks post-exit.

Traction stage companies have launched product, are generating revenue, and are typically at Series B-C. The framework focuses on building data collection foundations for measurement, calculating impact annually based on actual production and sales volumes, and actively mitigating impact-impeding factors.

Scaling stage companies are growing revenue, proving long-term viability, and typically seeking growth equity or preparing for acquisition. At this stage, the framework asks companies to report to the board on impact, communicate impact to external stakeholders in a tailored manner, and align measurement methodology with widely accepted industry standards like GHG Protocol or ISO Standards.

Design principles

The framework is built on five principles. Support commercial value: companies should view impact practices as commercially valuable independent of investor mandates. Encompass different impacts: companies should explore all relevant impact pathways — not just emissions reduction, but adaptation, resiliency, biodiversity, and other outcomes — as potential value creation levers. Mature practices alongside growth: practices come into scope as they become valuable and practicable. Harmonize investor engagement: the framework provides a common set of expectations that GPs and LPs can reference, reducing the burden of conflicting requests from multiple investors. And interoperability with existing guidance: core practices largely align with what VCA members already encourage, streamlined into a single framework to simplify action.

Additional practices

Beyond the core stage-based practices, the framework identifies optional "best-in-class" elements that may not be commercially valuable for all companies but promote standardization. These include publishing an impact white paper, incorporating impact into the company's mission statement, setting explicit impact goals, linkin