57.7 Gt
Global emissions in 2024, up 2.3% on the prior year. Still accelerating.
EVA³™ · Equity · Environment · Economy
The pledge is not the performance.
Most organisations do not have a sustainability ambition problem — they have a delivery problem. The commitments are public, the decks are beautiful, and the gap between the pledge and the auditable quarterly result grows quietly every reporting cycle.
EVA³™ is the behavioural compact that closes that gap: who does what differently on Monday morning, which trade-offs need a named signature, and what gets reported honestly every quarter — the misses included.
Score your pledge-to-delivery gap — free, ten minutes → The 3×3 Scan — nine cells, ten minutes → The EVA³ Course — six free sessions →The decade, in four numbers
2.3–2.5°C
End-of-century warming on current national pledges; 2.8°C on current policies.
≈75%
Of a typical company's footprint sits in Scope 3 — outside its own four walls.
11,000+
Companies with science-based targets. Very few on track to deliver them.
Sources: UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025 · GHG Protocol · SBTi — as cited in the EVA³ white paper.
Five ways pledges die — and the counterweight to each
| Failure mode | What it looks like | EVA³ counterweight |
|---|---|---|
| Pledge inflation | Public commitments outrun internal capacity to deliver. | Evidence lens — every pledge tied to a delivery plan with audited milestones. |
| Audit theatre | Effort goes to the appearance of compliance, not real reduction. | Institutional lens — accountability moved into governance and contracts. |
| Cost dominance | Buyers rewarded on unit cost; carbon a tiebreaker at best. | True Carbon Count™ in should-cost — carbon priced into the decision. |
| Siloed accountability | Sustainability, procurement and finance each own a third. No-one owns the pathway. | Systemic lens — a joint operating model across CPO, CSO and CFO. |
| Stakeholder fatigue | Suppliers receive twenty questionnaires. Engagement collapses into form-filling. | Inclusive partnering — fewer, deeper engagements with shared standards. |
Three pillars — the three questions that matter
Equity
"Are we doing right by the people across the value chain?"
Living wage, worker voice, payment practices that would survive publication — as data with owners, not prose in a report.
Environment
"Are we cutting the right tonnes?"
Absolute, dated targets; abatement levers ranked by materiality, not optics; environmental weight that actually changes sourcing outcomes.
Economy
"Are we building durable value while we do it?"
Business cases, quantified premiums and cost of inaction, decisions on total cost of ownership — pledges without economics get cut in the first hard quarter.
Three lenses — how each pillar is held
Lens 1
Evidence
The second ledger: non-financial data with named owners and review controls, traceable to numbers an auditor could re-derive.
Lens 2
Institutional
Governance that bites: quarterly cadence, executive owners per pledge, sustainability in scorecards and remuneration.
Lens 3
Systemic
The value chain beyond your walls: supplier data, Scope 3, and the behavioural changes that hold when nobody is watching.
Six horizons, 2026 to 2050 — the first three are non-negotiable
H0 · 2026
Diagnose & Disclose. Nine-cell baseline scored; Scope 1/2/3 measured; top-twenty suppliers mapped.
H1 · 2027–28
Validate & Activate. Targets validated; KPIs and contracts changed; SBTi V2.0 mandatory for new targets from Jan 2028.
H2 · 2029–30
Deliver the Halving. Delivered tonnes, externally assured. The horizon that decides credibility.
H3 · 2031–35
Compound. The Scope 3 era: TCC at scale, supplier finance mainstream.
H4 · 2036–45
Transform. Products and business models change; capital climate-tested by default.
H5 · 2046–50
Settle Net-Zero. Residuals with high-quality removals; stewardship, not victory.
True Carbon Count™ — should-cost has been silent on carbon for twenty years
A should-cost model decomposes an item into materials, processing, labour, logistics and margin — brilliant at its job, blind to the carbon in every line. True Carbon Count™ adds the parallel carbon layer, so the buyer sees should-cost and should-carbon side by side, applies an internal carbon price, and reaches one decision metric.
Worked example (illustrative, from the white paper): Supplier A at $10.00 and 6.70 kg CO₂e; Supplier B at $10.30 and 3.15 kg. At $120/tCO₂e, TCC-adjusted: A $10.80 · B $10.68. Supplier B was already cheaper — without TCC, the buyer could not see it.
Buyers adopt what they are measured on.
Where the Augmentation Line™ runs through EVA³
Sustainability delivery is a data problem wearing a values costume — which makes it exactly where AI helps and exactly where it must stop. AI runs the monitoring: the data assembly, the supplier evidence collection, the drift-watching between quarters. Named humans keep the judgement: Foundation-gate waivers, trade-off decisions, and the balance between the three E's when they pull against each other.
If a trade-off can't show who signed it, it isn't governed. Whatever produced it.
The white paper: EVA³ — The Behavioral Compact for Sustainable Business
By Dr. Madeleine Joubert. The framework in full: the gap between pledges and measurable action, the nine-cell Delivery Grid, and the pragmatic behavioural roadmap for procurement officers, sustainability leaders and boards. Enter your details and the download unlocks instantly.
Bring your hardest pledge
A 45-minute working session: your readiness score on the table, the compact drafted for the commitment that worries you most, and the first quarter agreed.
Book a 45-minute session →STORYC LTD (company no. 17293375) · EVA³™, the AI Augmentation Line™ and AI-Augmented Consulting™ (UK TM application UK00004409146) are trade marks of StoryC Ltd. This page is a management framework, not assurance, legal or investment advice. Privacy · storycltd.co.uk