Virtus: Screening Smarter for Climate Investments
Welcome to the September edition of our Virtus newsletter!
This month, we’re energized by time together as a team in Malta, sharpened by new tools for smarter impact screening, and inspired by breakthrough research and bold moves in climate finance.
In Our Take, Jimena introduces Traro, Gordian Knot Strategies’ seven-pillar screening tool that cuts through the “messy middle” of climate investing, moving from 50 proposals to 5 investable opportunities with speed and accuracy.
On Untangling Climate Finance, Sebastian Leape, CEO of Natcap, shares how nature intelligence is becoming a competitive advantage for companies navigating reporting regulations and the broader shift toward integrating biodiversity into business strategy.
In What We’re Absorbing, we spotlight powerful new science attributing heatwaves to carbon majors, a rigorous look at whether carbon offsets actually accelerate or delay corporate decarbonization, and a call to action from Shift.
And in Climate Finance Deals, we feature record-breaking MDB financing, Netflix’s bet on carbon credits, Indigenous-led wind power in Yukon, and Denmark’s historic move to launch the world’s first sovereign European Green Bond.
Gordian Knot Strategies
We are Igniting Climate Solutions: Mobilizing $1 Billion Per Year in Impact Investment by 2030!
Earlier this month, our team wrapped up a four-day retreat in Malta, where we had the invaluable opportunity to step back from the day-to-day and come together in person. Over the week, we reflected on our progress, challenged each other with bold ideas, and aligned on next steps to accelerate our work.
We left energized and united around our shared mission – igniting climate solutions by mobilizing $1 billion per year in impact investment by 2030!
Written by: Jimena Caballero
The climate finance pipeline is overflowing with projects looking for investment, but the real challenge for investors isn’t sourcing deals—it’s figuring out which ones are worth the time and resources. With $8.1 trillion in climate investment in nature-based solutions needed by 2050, the stakes have never been higher for allocating capital to solutions that truly move the needle and deliver lasting impact.
That’s where the screening tool Traro®, developed by Gordian Knot Strategies, makes the difference.
A Repeatable Screening Framework
If you’ve been following along, you’ll remember that in an earlier Sliced newsletter this month—Inside the Minds of Impact Investors: Surprising Secrets to Screening Climate Deals—we pulled back the curtain on how investors actually approach screening. We found that while everyone employs a screening approach, few have an effective and systematic process. Screening often gets squeezed between relationship-building and diligence, creating inefficiencies, wasted time, and missed opportunities.
Traro®’s seven pillar filtering framework helps investors quickly identify viable climate projects by assessing problem clarity, solution credibility, stakeholder engagement, team strength, impact measurement, policy alignment, and verified market demand. Together, these seven elements serve as an expedited and consistent model to separate investment-ready climate projects from distractions—turning screening from a “messy middle” into a clear, repeatable deal flow identifying opportunities positioned for both real impact and financial returns.
To read the rest of this paper, click here.
Client Served in the United States:
We worked with an international standards body for over two years to strengthen integrity on the supply side of the voluntary carbon market through our Climate Solutions Strategy & Advisory Services. Our role included supporting the development of a rigorous assessment framework, synthesizing global feedback from a public consultation, and shaping a strategic business model to support sustained growth. This work directly contributes to raising the bar on credibility and trust in carbon credits – helping to unlock institutional capital and position the voluntary carbon market as a more transparent, investible, and scalable climate finance asset class.
“Gordian Knot Strategies has the ability to navigate and understand important ESG issues that are relevant to our company.”
Dick Kempka – Vice President of Conservation, Molplus Woodlands Group
🎙️ In this episode, Sebastian Leape, CEO of Natcap, explores how nature intelligence is transforming corporate sustainability and shaping the future of climate finance. He shares how Natcap helps companies measure and manage their impacts on nature – like deforestation, water use, and pollution – while identifying critical dependencies that underpin business resilience and supply chains. Sebastian also discusses the growing influence of frameworks like TNFD and CSRD, the challenges with biodiversity offsets, and why integrating nature data into business strategy is becoming a competitive advantage.
Click any of the links below to listen!
Below is a curated selection of standout opportunities brought to you by GKS’s valued clients.
Savory Foundation: Carbon Removal Credits – Uruguay Grasslands Regeneration Project
The Savory Foundation along with the Savory Institute, Pampa Oriental, and Cultivo are now offering nature-based carbon removal credits from their Uruguay Grasslands Regeneration Project. This groundbreaking project spans 115,00 hectares, employing Savory’s Holistic Management framework to restore grasslands while supporting local communities and ecosystems.
The project, under Verra’s VM0032 Methodology for Sustainable Grasslands, anticipates an annual issuance of around 152,000 credits, beginning in 2026, and addresses the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, 13: Climate Action, 15: Life of Land, and 17: Partnership for the Goals.
To learn more about this project and its impact, click here.
If you want to connect about the project, email us here.
This month, we’re absorbing cutting-edge research on heatwaves and carbon majors, a deep dive into the real role of offsets in corporate climate strategies, and a call to action to discover the climate actions you can take with Shift.
✍️ Systematic attribution of heatwaves to the emissions of carbon majors (Yann Quilcaille et al.) — A groundbreaking new study in Nature Climate Change systematically links 213 heatwaves between 2000–2023 to the emissions of 180 fossil fuel and cement producers (“carbon majors”). The research shows carbon majors contributed to half the increase in heatwave intensity since preindustrial times, with some companies enabling dozens of events that would have been virtually impossible without climate change. It’s a powerful step toward scientific attribution that could shape both accountability and litigation in the climate space.
✍️ The negligible role of carbon offsetting in corporate climate strategies (Niklas Stolz & Benedict S. Probst) — Published in Nature Communications, this study examines 89 multinational companies and finds no significant difference in emission reductions between those that purchase carbon credits and those that don’t. While offsets account for a quarter of all credits retired in 2022, most companies spend only about 1% of capex on them — suggesting offsets rarely crowd out internal decarbonization. The exception: airlines, where offsetting sometimes competes directly with real emissions cuts. At the same time, other reports argue that companies using offsets often move faster on climate, underscoring the ongoing debate about whether credits enable or delay real decarbonization.
🔗 Read to Make a Shift? Dr. Kimberly Nicholas (in partnership with Project Drawdown) has launched Shift, a personalized, research-based guide to climate superpowers. Whether you’re a citizen, professional, investor, consumer or role model, it helps you find actions that really move the needle — based on what you can do. Visit jointheshift.earth to get your action guide, start small or go deep, and make change that adds up.
This month’s climate finance deals feature record MDB funding, corporate carbon credit buys, Indigenous-led clean energy, and a world-first sovereign green bond. Click the title for the link.
Global climate financing by multilateral development banks (MDBs) hit a record $137 billion in 2024, with an additional $134 billion mobilized from private sources, marking strong year-on-year growth. The majority went to low- and middle-income economies, where adaptation and resilience financing is rising, including a notable boost from the IDB Group in Latin America and the Caribbean. MDBs are also rolling out a digital portal for transparent, real-time climate finance data, set to debut in late 2025, ahead of COP30 in Brazil.
Netflix Signs Carbon Credit Deal with American Forest Foundation
Netflix has signed a 15-year deal with the American Forest Foundation to purchase carbon credits from its Fields & Forests project, which helps family landowners in the U.S. South convert underused fields into sustainable forests. The investment, structured through milestone prepayments, will fund tree planting, technical support, and direct payments to landowners—expanding the project from its current 2,500 acres toward a goal of 75,000 acres by 2032, generating nearly 5 million carbon credits. This partnership highlights Netflix’s early leadership in advancing natural climate solutions while supporting rural communities.
$16.5M Boost for Yukon’s First Community-Owned Wind Project in Canada
Canada has announced $13.5 million in new federal funding for the Kluane N’tsi Wind Energy Project in Yukon, bringing total federal support to $16.5 million. The community-owned 900-kW turbine, paired with battery storage, enables “diesel-off” conditions—cutting annual diesel use by 300,000 litres (50%) and setting a national precedent. Led by the Kluane N’tsi Nation, the project showcases Indigenous leadership in advancing clean, cost-saving energy solutions in northern Canada.
Denmark to Issue $1.4B European Green Bond, a World First
Denmark is set to become the first sovereign issuer of a European Green Government Bond (EuGB) under the EU’s new Green Bond Standard. The upcoming 10-year bond, expected in the second half of 2025 via syndication, will raise up to DKK 10 billion, with proceeds funding green government expenditures in energy, transport, agriculture, and nature restoration. Issued as a “twin bond” to Denmark’s 2035 conventional bond, it aligns with both ICMA’s Green Bond Principles and the EuGB Standard, signaling Denmark’s leadership in building transparent, high-trust green capital markets.
At Gordian Knot Strategies, our goal is to help mobilize $1B per year in climate finance. That is why we’re committed to making climate finance smarter and faster by addressing a broken impact investing screening process. That’s why we built Traro, a predictive analytics platform designed to help investors rapidly triage opportunities with clarity, consistency, and confidence.
If you’d like to dive deeper into best practices, download our free guide: Smarter Climate Investing: 7 Strategic Filters Before Your First Impact Dollar. We are hosting a free webinar on Traro to share the best practices for effective impact screening on Oct 2. Link to register is here.
And if your organization is interested in seeing Traro in action, we’d love to show you how it works. Email us at traro@gordianknotstrategies.com.
There’s no cost to access the guide or the demo. Our goal is to equip more investors with tools that unlock real climate impact.
At Gordian Knot Strategies, we’re building a global database of impact investors to help mobilize $1 billion annually in climate finance by 2030. If your organization is interested in providing funding for climate or environmental projects, we invite you to fill out our Impact Investor Information Form. Your contact details will remain confidential, and we’ll only connect you with aligned opportunities. There is no fee to participate.
To access the form click here.
Interested in connecting with us on climate finance, impact investment, climate solutions strategy, or carbon credit development and commercialization?
Book a 30-minute conversation with Gordian Knot Strategies here to discuss how we can support your goals.
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