The Rockefeller Foundation has launched a pioneering initiative that aims to accelerate the shift from coal-fired power generation to clean energy in developing countries. The Foundation’s Coal to Clean Credit Initiative (CCCI) is an innovative plan.
CCCI uses carbon credits to help retire old coal plants. Then, it replaces them with renewable energy sources. This work helps cut greenhouse gas emissions while supporting economic growth and boosting public health in vulnerable communities.
Introducing the Coal to Clean Credit Initiative (CCCI)
The CCCI aims to give financial rewards. This helps coal-fired power plant owners close their plants sooner than expected. It also encourages a shift to renewable energy.
The centerpiece of the initiative is a new type of carbon credit called “transition credits.” Credits are created when a coal plant shuts down early. It is replaced by clean energy sources like solar, wind, and energy storage systems. CCCI matters because:
These transition credits can be sold to companies or organizations. They help offset emissions, just like traditional carbon credits. The money from selling these credits can help replace coal plants with clean energy. It can also support workers and communities impacted by the closures.
Dr. Joseph Curtin, Managing Director for Power and Climate at The Rockefeller Foundation, remarked:
“Today’s progress update demonstrates that we are closer than ever to unlocking new benefits to people with credits that will help communities transition to clean, affordable energy. We are now focused on scaling this initiative and bringing dozens of such transactions to the market by 2030.”
Verra, a global nonprofit that certifies carbon credits, has approved the method for creating transition credits. This is a key development in the initiative. This official approval is an important step as it gives clear rules and protections.
The approved rules help ensure that the credits are high quality and provide real environmental and social benefits. The approved method aims to create jobs, improve energy access, and protect workers’ rights and local communities.
According to Mandy Rambharos, CEO of Verra,
“We need to rethink the very systems that are hurting people and the planet. Our new methodology empowers energy providers to make that shift in a way that doesn’t leave workers or communities behind and doesn’t inadvertently exacerbate energy poverty.”
Pilot Project: Transitioning the SLTEC Plant in the Philippines
The first real test of the CCCI is in the Philippines. ACEN Corporation, part of the Ayala Group, is retiring its 246 MW South Luzon Thermal Energy Corporation (SLTEC) coal plant. Originally slated to close in 2040, ACEN plans to retire the plant by 2030 using the CCCI framework.
- To fully replace SLTEC’s power output, ACEN aims to build 1,000 megawatts (MW) of solar, 250 MW of wind, and 1,000 MW of battery storage.
These clean energy sources will offer reliable and affordable electricity. They will also help reduce harmful air pollution in the region.
This transition is especially important in Batangas, where the SLTEC plant is located. The area’s population density is 31% higher than the national average, and unemployment levels are among the highest in the country.
Closing the plant and switching to renewable energy should create new permanent jobs. It will also improve local air quality. This change may reduce health problems linked to pollution. Over 726,000 people live within 20 kilometers of the plant, making the project’s public health impact significant.
ACEN is teaming up with several organizations to support this transition. Partners include GenZero, Keppel, and Mitsubishi Corporation via its subsidiary, Diamond Generating Asia. These partners will work together to ensure the project delivers both environmental and social benefits.
Scaling Up: Targeting 60 Coal Plant Transitions by 2030
The Rockefeller Foundation will expand the CCCI, building on its pilot project in the Philippines. They aim to support 60 coal plant transitions by 2030. This effort will focus on emerging markets, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Foundation believes this could lead to $110 billion in investments. It may also create 29,000 permanent jobs, prevent 9,900 premature deaths each year, and cut down 640,000 lost workdays annually thanks to improved air quality.
The initiative could create about $21 billion in economic benefits. It could also help consumers in emerging economies save up to $8.3 billion each year on power costs. These figures come from early estimates by Catalyst Advisors.
Renewable energy technologies, like solar and wind, are now cheaper than coal in many markets. This is possible when they are paired with energy storage, says the International Energy Agency (IEA).
To ensure the integrity and effectiveness of the transition credits, the Rockefeller Foundation has awarded a $600,000 grant to the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM Limited). This funding will help set high standards for transition credits. It will also make sure that Indigenous Peoples and local communities are included in designing and implementing future projects.
Addressing Coal Dependence in Emerging Economies
Coal-fired power remains a significant challenge for global climate efforts. Its carbon emissions rose by 0.9% (135 Mt CO₂) in 2024.
The IEA reports that coal made up about 36% of global electricity in 2023. Many emerging economies still depend on coal to meet rising energy needs. This is happening even with global pressure to reduce coal use.
Programs like the Rockefeller Foundation’s CCCI help connect climate goals with economic needs in developing countries. The initiative offers a clear plan to close coal plants early. It replaces them with clean energy sources, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, it protects jobs and supports communities. It also ensures reliable access to electricity.
A 2023 BloombergNEF report says emerging markets need more than $2.6 trillion for clean energy by 2050. This investment is crucial to meet global climate goals, especially net zero. Using innovative methods like transition credits can help unlock capital. This approach could be crucial for speeding up decarbonization.
The CCCI works alongside other global initiatives. One example is the Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETP). These agreements offer financial and technical help to countries like Indonesia, South Africa, and Vietnam. They support these coal-heavy nations as they shift to clean energy.
A Model for the Future
The Rockefeller Foundation’s initiative highlights how philanthropy, private companies, governments, and financial markets can collaborate. They aim to address a tough challenge in the global energy transition: retiring coal plants early.
The CCCI combines verified transition credits, strong social protections, and clear economic benefits. This makes it a model for coal-dependent regions around the world to follow.
As more countries seek to decarbonize and meet their climate commitments, initiatives like this will likely play a growing role in shaping a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable future.
The post Rockefeller Foundation’s Carbon Credit Initiative: Turning 60 Coal Plants Into Clean Energy Gold appeared first on Carbon Credits.
Most businesses that decide to act on their net-zero targets reach the same point of friction. Buying carbon credits has meant tracking down brokers, sitting through sales calls, and requesting a quote just to learn a price, sometimes with limited proof of what you are buying.
The earnings calls that quietly reframed climate from sustainability question to operating risk.
Three earnings calls in the last 18 months tell the story without any help from a press release.
Hershey, May 2024: cocoa price exposure compresses margin, and the company attributes part of the cost shock to West African weather. Olam, July 2024: coffee climate exposure quantified in the annual report. JBS, January 2025: supply chain climate disclosures expanded materially in response to investor pressure and regulatory expectation. None of these companies issued the announcement as climate news. They issued it as financial news. The climate-linked supply chain risk did not arrive with a sustainability framing; it arrived as a P&L line.
You are probably reading this article because you suspect the same thing is happening to your business. This piece walks through what is showing up on which earnings calls, how procurement and finance leaders are quantifying the exposure, and what serious corporates are doing about it before the regulator asks.
Where climate risk has already appeared in earnings
The pattern is consistent across resource-intensive sectors. A weather event compresses supply, the price spikes, the cost flows through the income statement, and the analyst on the call asks whether the event is anomalous or structural. Increasingly, the honest answer is the second one.
Cocoa is the cleanest example. The 2023 to 2024 West African harvest fell sharply on the back of erratic rainfall and disease. Cocoa futures more than tripled. Companies with concentrated West African sourcing absorbed the cost; companies with diversified sourcing absorbed less. The exposure was not climate as ESG topic. It was climate as cost of goods.
Coffee follows the same pattern. Brazilian and Vietnamese harvests have moved on weather more sharply across the last several seasons. Roasters with long-tenor supplier relationships and origin diversification have managed the volatility; roasters with spot-market exposure have not. Wheat, sugar, palm oil, beef: the same dynamic in different commodities, a pattern the IPCC AR6 Working Group II report projects will intensify across agricultural systems through mid-century.
What this means: climate risk is no longer a footnote in the 10-K. It is a line item the CFO has to explain on the call.
The three commodity exposures that hit margin first
For most companies with material Scope 3 exposure, three exposures dominate the near-term P&L risk.
- Concentrated single-origin sourcing in a climate-vulnerable region. If your tier-one supply for any material commodity sits in one geography, you have a concentration risk that climate amplifies. Diversification across origins is the obvious hedge, but it takes years to build and requires relationships you cannot acquire by tender.
- Supplier financial fragility under climate stress. Smallholder farmers, who supply a large share of the global cocoa, coffee, and palm oil market, do not carry the balance sheets to absorb yield shocks. When yields collapse, they exit. When they exit, your supply base shrinks, and the surviving suppliers raise prices. The risk is structural, not cyclical.
- Logistics and storage exposure to extreme weather. Hurricane disruptions to Gulf shipping, drought-driven Panama Canal restrictions, flooding in European inland waterways: each of these has moved input costs in the last three years, a pattern documented in Munich Re’s natural catastrophe data. The exposure shows up as a one-quarter event in the financial press but accumulates over time on the cost line.
TCFD and ISSB disclosure changes
The disclosure architecture has now caught up with the risk. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, whose recommendations are now embedded in the ISSB’s IFRS S2 climate standard, requires companies to disclose climate-related risks across physical and transition categories, with quantification where possible.
For physical risk specifically (the climate-linked supply chain risk you are reading about), the disclosure must address both acute exposures (extreme weather events) and chronic exposures (gradual changes in temperature, precipitation, and growing seasons). The disclosure must address the time horizon over which the risk is material, the parts of the value chain exposed, and the financial impact under different scenarios.
The CSRD imposes similar requirements under European law, with double materiality (both financial and impact materiality) embedded in the assessment. The practical effect: your auditors and your investor relations team now need a defensible answer to the climate-linked supply chain risk question, and the answer needs to be quantified.
What procurement and finance can do now
Three actions matter near-term.
Map your exposure. Most companies do not have a clear view of which tier-one and tier-two suppliers sit in which climate-vulnerable geographies. Without the map, you cannot quantify the risk, and without the quantification, you cannot disclose it credibly. The map is the foundation, and World Resources Institute climate risk research provides useful public tooling to start.
Diversify and deepen, in that order. Diversification across origins reduces concentration risk, but the deeper move is to invest in the resilience of the suppliers you already have. Regenerative practices, agroforestry, soil health interventions: these reduce yield volatility under climate stress and protect your input cost trajectory.
Embed the climate spend inside procurement, not outside it. Treating climate risk as a sustainability cost line subordinates it to the ESG budget. Treating it as a procurement and resilience investment puts it in the budget that matters, which is the cost-of-goods budget that the CFO defends quarterly.
Nature-based supply chain investments are the asset class designed for exactly this purpose. They sit inside the value chain, they reduce climate-linked supply risk, they generate verifiable Scope 3 reductions, and they produce the documentation an auditor and a regulator can both test.
If you are quantifying climate-linked supply chain risk in advance of the next earnings cycle or the next disclosure period, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help you map your exposure and structure a Dual-Value Model response that addresses reduction, resilience, and disclosure-readiness in a single program. Schedule a consultation.
More and more small and medium-sized businesses are hearing the same question from their larger customers: What is your carbon footprint? That question now travels down entire supply chains, and it arrives next to tender requirements, certification criteria, and rising customer expectations.
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