McKinsey offers counsel and expertise on the business impact of climate change to the world’s leading institutions. In doing so, our firm is striving to accelerate the shift toward a low carbon global economy. In the first six months of 2007 we have helped around 70 clients in the field of climate change.

We have deep expertise on issues including abatement cost curves, the business impact of carbon regulation, emissions trading, biofuels and changing asset valuation.

Our abatement cost curve allows clients to understand the size and cost of measures for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It allows clients to identify business opportunities, which emerge from taking measures to reduce emissions early on, and it is being utilized by clients across a broad range of sectors and geographies. In addition, efforts to develop seven country specific abatement cost curves are ongoing or have already been completed since the original global abatement work (Germany, the U.S., the UK, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan).

Knowledge efforts and broad experience from client work in all major renewable energy sources from biofuels to geothermal, in low carbon technologies like carbon capture and storage, on energy demand models, and in-depths perspectives for industries like power, automotive and chemicals are completing our portfolio of expertise.

We support clients in the assessment of their businesses’ exposure to climate change and its effect on market dynamics and the regulatory environment. Together, we develop strategies for meeting the challenges and for utilising our clients’ strengths to pursue emerging business opportunities. We are also helping our clients to reduce carbon emissions internally, along their supply chains and the carbon footprint related to their products. Recent efforts for clients include topics like:

	Regulatory strategy – Developing scenarios on future carbon regulation and carbon prices, rent shifts in the value chain, stakeholder impact and the appropriate strategic response
	Value at stake – Assessing the economic impact from climate change on future demand and on margins for the existing business
	Low carbon business opportunities – Identification of low carbon business opportunities along the abatement cost curve and from changes in consumer demand
	Low carbon supply chain management – Assessment of means, requirements and business implications of reducing carbon emissions along the supply chain
	Energy efficiency gains – Helping a major city to achieve emission reduction targets for buildings despite increasing demand for energy and growing emissions
	Smart metering – Designing a strategy to embrace and drive climate change related opportunities in gas and electric transmission and distribution businesses
	Environmental finance – Development of an environmental finance business: identification of green investment opportunities and designing the required organization
	Carbon trading – Conducting due diligences for low-/high-carbon targets, including the assessment of strategic options for benefiting from carbon trading opportunities and the development of emission certificate trading strategies. Setting up a trading unit for a major utility
	Corporate climate change strategy – Evaluating means to reduce a company's carbon footprint as well as emissions caused along the value chain and understand the business implications of positioning "green"
	Sustainability, – support in the development of environmental strategies, in building internal organization to drive strategy and in building "green" businesses