McKinsey Launches Catalyst Zero to Help Customers Find and Eliminate Carbon in Their Businesses

Companies around the world are eager to remove carbon from their operations and value chain, but most say they still need better tools to be able to do it at scale and pace. Having better data transparency, insight into potential decarbonization levers, and the ability to create a comprehensive plan and track progress against it are all fundamental to enabling leaders to decide where to start and know which measures will pay off.
Recognizing this problem, McKinsey sought to provide a distinctive digital solution to drive change. Today we are pleased to announce the official launch of Catalyst Zero, our end-to-end decarbonization solution that helps customers find and remove carbon from their business operations.
“Catalyst Zero brings together McKinsey’s sustainability expertise, industry-specific technical knowledge and proven transformation experience,” said Tolga Oguz, senior partner at McKinsey. “We work with companies in all sectors and at all stages of maturity, to accelerate their journey towards sustainable development.”
Catalyst Zero combines our company’s proven business transformation approach with cutting-edge technology to help customers establish their carbon footprint, assess their decarbonization options, set ambitious goals and manage execution progress while monitoring the impact of their actions. Through a digital platform that connects decarbonization decisions to broader business goals, we’re giving leaders a powerful new way to compare the expected monetary and emissions reduction impacts of various interventions side-by-side and choose what’s right for them. the best.
Catalyst Zero uses an end-to-end digital user interface, industry-leading data, and the best of McKinsey’s deep knowledge of decarbonization. It allows users to create an accurate and comprehensive view of emissions and match emissions to decarbonization levers through our AI-based mapping engine. By doing so, Catalyst Zero can quickly empower management to create a comprehensive plan to meet their company’s decarbonization goals.
“This solution can help companies eliminate carbon at the enterprise, product and value chain level,” said Ruth Heuss, senior partner at McKinsey. “Our technology helps customers clearly see key emission drivers and our people help them create decarbonization plans tailored to their organizations.”
Catalyst Zero is one of our most powerful tools to shape our customers’ decarbonization transformations
Thomas Hundertmark, senior partner at McKinsey
Companies that have used Catalyst Zero are already seeing the impact. A global company, for example, used Catalyst Zero to determine which of its nearly 300 manufacturing sites was emitting the most CO2. This allowed them to create a plan to quickly reduce emissions by 27%. In another case, Catalyst Zero helped a global retailer working with more than 800 suppliers reduce both costs and emissions by 200 million metric tons of CO2.
“To make the transition to a sustainable future, companies need to redefine their strategy, asset allocation and operating models over time,” said Thomas Hundertmark, senior partner at McKinsey. “They need transparency on the benchmarks and the levers available. And they need a performance engine to track progress. Catalyst Zero is one of our most powerful tools to shape our customers’ decarbonization transformations. »