Welcome back to The Ledger - a weekly briefing at the intersection of business, sustainability, technology and systems thinking. Let’s get straight into Issue #5.
The Big Idea: The Missing Rating
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Every industry has its standards. Credit has Moody’s. Buildings have LEED. Accounting has GAAP.
Industrial heat - the system that drives almost 20% of global emissions - has no such benchmark.
Every site is a bespoke puzzle. Every project is a gamble. Investors hesitate. Insurers price blindly. Operators are left with one-off solutions that rarely scale.
This is the missing readiness.
Without a finance-grade framework, thermal projects will stay stranded at the pilot stage. With one, they can move from scattered experiments to a repeatable, bankable asset class.
Think of it as the shift from stories to standards. Once readiness can be measured, compared, and trusted, capital can flow with confidence.
Signals from the Noise
What matters, what works and what’s worth watching.
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⚡ Industrial heat’s share of the carbon budget is tightening
By 2028, heating-related CO₂ could consume more than a fifth of the global remaining budget - with no sign of readiness metrics in place.
🔗 IEA
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💸 Insurance is already drawing the line
Withdrawals and premium hikes are spreading from property to energy-intensive sectors. What insurers can’t measure, they can’t price.
🔗 Brookings
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🌍 Policy is raising the minimum bar
The EU’s CBAM demands carbon data at the border. Without standardised readiness factors, exporters risk losing access.
🔗 European Commission
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🥫 Food & drink: a case study in under-preparedness
Despite its thermal intensity, the sector lags on decarbonisation - with investors pointing to the absence of finance-grade benchmarks as the barrier.
🔗 WBCSD
From the Ground
A risk engineer I spoke to put it simply:
"Our models work when inputs are standardised. Until heat projects report with consistency, they’re unpriceable - and uninsurable."
The Ledger Line
Industrial heat doesn’t lack technology. It lacks readiness.
End Note
Readiness is the missing piece. It’s the hinge point between ambition and capital.
When readiness becomes measurable, insurers can underwrite it, investors can back it and operators can trust it. That’s when the invisible part of the energy transition becomes inevitable.
If this sharpened something for you, pass it on to someone still puzzling over why industrial projects stall.
Or reply and share: where do you see readiness gaps in your world?
Here’s to what’s possible.
Dom