Spheres of Influence
Currently, only ‘half’ of corporate action on climate is incentivised or rewarded – GHG emissions reduction within companies’ own value chains. The Scope Inventory.
Spheres of Influence recognises the crucial other half, a business’s influence emissions. The impact beyond its inventory that is key to reaching global net zero.
Businesses have a tremendous opportunity to accelerate the global transition to net zero. While traditional metrics like Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions are crucial for tracking a company's direct and value chain impact, they don't fully capture the broader action the world needs, nor the full influence a company has.
For decades, businesses have been developing innovative products that avoid emissions, investing capital in climate-positive projects, and using their voice to influence policy or societal norms.
Spheres of Influence is a multi-year collaborative effort between Futerra, Oxford Net Zero, and leading businesses to credibly define, measure and incentivise influence-based climate action. Importantly, Spheres has been designed to complement Scopes, not replace them, to widen the lens through which companies – and the broader sustainability ecosystem – measure impact and enact change.
Spheres is not about reinventing the wheel. The framework offers a solution for businesses to more fully capture and communicate their influence, while uncovering opportunities to accelerate climate action within their sectors by shifting systems.
Concepts such as avoided emissions, beyond value chain mitigation, and responsible policy engagement have been discussed over decades. Excellent thinking and measurable leadership standards exist and are widely used; Spheres simply exists to unite the major categories of influence-based action under a single strategic umbrella to elevate the credibility and impact of these efforts.
The Three Spheres of Influence
The framework is built upon three key "Spheres" that together provide a holistic view of influence-based corporate climate action.
Products and Services (Sphere A)
A company’s efforts to drive climate action through the core offerings it brings to markets. This includes innovating, developing, and scaling climate-solution products and services.
Portfolio of Climate System Investments (Sphere B)
A company’s financial influence, including how it directs finance towards climate solutions via advance market commitments or other mechanisms, ultimately helping develop a wider market for climate solutions.
Policy and Public Engagement (Sphere C):
A company’s role in shaping the systems it exists within, and relies on, through advocacy and communication. This involves engaging to help shape policy, industry group agendas, and cultural narratives to foster a more supportive context for global decarbonisation.
Development of Spheres Over Time
2024 – From idea to public conversation: The Spheres of Influence concept was introduced in the peer-reviewed Is Impact Out of Scope? and brought to a wider business audience through the Harvard Business Review article To Incentivize Companies to Address Climate Change, Measure Their Broader Impact, making the case for recognising corporate climate impact beyond traditional emissions inventories.
2025 – From concept to framework: Futerra and Oxford Net Zero developed the academic concept into a practical framework, convening a pilot group of leading companies to test and refine the approach and publishing the first Spheres of Influence working white paper.
2026 – From framework to strategic tool: The project has most recently focused on operationalising Spheres through public consultation, a review of leading climate standards and guidance, and the development and testing of practical KPIs to help companies identify, measure and strengthen their contribution to global net zero. KPIs will be released for public consultation in late 2026.
Learn More
This short introduction to Spheres distills the strategic value of the framework and is ready-to-share with others in your organisation or sector.
Download the White Paper
Dive into the Spheres framework and discover how it can be used as a strategic tool to drive measurable impact in the latest Spheres of Influence white paper.
This white paper underwent public consultation from September 2025 through March 2026. Thank you to those who contributed your insights and experiences to help us refine and strengthen the framework. Please stay tuned for updates.
Spheres in the Press and Wider World
Press, Academia & Wider Adoption
Kaya Axelsson and Mathilda Booker, Oxford Net Zero - Is impact out of scope? A call for innovation in climate standards to inspire action across companies’ Spheres of Influence (2024)
Solitaire Townsend and Kaya Axelsson, Harvard Business Review – To Incentivize Companies to Address Climate Change, Measure Their Broader Impact. (2024)
Joel Makower, Trellis – Companies need a new way to measure impact. ‘Spheres of Influence’ offers one possibility and accompanying podcast episode (2025)
Joel Makower and Solitair Townsend, Trellis – Is incrementalism enough in a systems-change world? and accompanying podcast episode (2026)
ISO 14060 – Net Zero Aligned Organisations – would be the world’s first international net zero standard. The draft standard, released in June 2026 for public consultation describes action across all three spheres of influence as credible contributions toward global net zero. (2026)
Videos
2024 – New York Climate Week Spheres Conceptual Launch
2025 – New York Climate Week 2025 White Paper Launch
2026 San Francisco Climate Week – Spheres in Action
Collaborators
The Spheres of Influence framework is a joint effort by Futerra and Oxford Net Zero.
About Futerra:
Futerra is a global change agency with offices in London, New York, San Francisco and Mexico City. For 25 years, Futerra has led the sustainability transition.
About the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment:
The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford equips enterprise to achieve net zero emissions and the sustainable development goals, through world-leading research, teaching and partnerships.
https://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/
About Oxford Net Zero:
Oxford Net Zero is an interdisciplinary research initiative at the University of Oxford, focused on the critical questions of how to achieve net zero emissions equitably and effectively.
About the Pilot Group:
A growing number of major businesses work with us as invaluable Pilot Partners: Oatly, Chanel, Unilever, Google, and National Grid. They are supportive in the development of the Spheres framework, pressure testing its suitability and usability in commercial environments across sectors.