Catalyst Zero

How We Help Clients

We combine innovative technology with decades of transformation expertise to help you move from climate intention to impact.

The importance of addressing climate change and reducing carbon emissions has never been greater. At the same time, there are tremendous opportunities for leaders who make the right moves. The challenge facing leaders isn’t only understanding where these climate-related risks and opportunities lie but also how to lead their companies on this important journey across a complex, dynamic, and often uncertain landscape.

Catalyst Zero can help.

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Experience Catalyst Zero

We combine unmatched proprietary data, expert insights, and transformation expertise to help clients decarbonize their companies, products, and assets at unprecedented speed and scale.

What we do

We work with our clients to decarbonize across their business. Specifically, we help:

Set data-backed carbon-emissions reduction targets

that align with external standards and initiatives, such as SBTi, GHG Protocol, TCFD, CDP, and GRI

Develop company-wide transition strategies

by better understanding a company’s carbon footprint and implementing decarbonization initiatives across the entire organization

Decarbonize supply chains

by simulating the material value chain and examining abatement options to reduce embedded carbon in procured components and raw materials to achieve zero-carbon products

Our approach

Our proven approach rapidly helps companies build a more sustainable business with analytical and strategic support throughout the process.

Baseline

With speed and precision, assess an organization’s overall carbon footprint, and identify decarbonization priorities.

Value

Evaluate areas of carbon reduction potential, and assess their financial costs and benefits.

Plan

Set specific decarbonization targets, and create detailed plans to achieve them.

Act

Stay responsive to change, and make informed adjustments to the plan in real time with automated reporting and full transparency.

Value Chain Twin

Sustainability with substance

These days, many products promise to be green, but how many can back up their claims? With Catalyst Zero’s Value Chain Twin capability, you can achieve ultra-low emissions in your production without compromising on product quality.

Our core technology

Automate MACC generation

Our marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) tool leverages data ingestion and machine learning to reduce manual work, connect your activities directly to your decarbonization plan, and accelerate your path to carbon abatement.

Examples of our work

Case Study

Accelerating decarbonization across the farming supply chain

February 4, 2025 -

Agriculture equipment manufacturer AGCO worked with McKinsey to automate decarbonization cost curve building and planning efforts using the Catalyst Zero tool.

Read the case study

Working with a manufacturer to develop zero carbon products

Using our zero-carbon product module, we helped set a leading industrial components manufacturer on the path to a 25 percent emissions reduction from all purchased goods by 2030, with a further 15 percent emissions reductions expected across the value chain.

Read the case study

Putting a leading pharmaceutical company on the path to decarbonization

A global chemicals and pharmaceuticals company used Catalyst Zero to identify over 4,500 kilotons of CO2 to be cut from supply chains. The company is on track to achieve a 28 percent reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030.

Helping a global logistics company reduce emissions along with costs

We worked with a logistics company to reduce its carbon intensity by an estimated 27 percent by 2025 while driving six percent year-over-year business growth.

Featured insights

Article

Add innovation and performance by subtracting carbon and cost

May 2, 2025 -

Early movers show what it takes to succeed on both sides of manufacturers’ dual mission: reduce their cost base and carbon footprint while optimizing their financial performance.

Abstract image of undulating green landscape

Blog Post

McKinsey launches Catalyst Zero to help clients find and remove carbon across their businesses

July 13, 2022 -

McKinsey Sustainability’s new end-to-end decarbonization solution helps organizations build and execute data-driven decarbonization strategies.

Collection

Decarbonizing the world’s industries: A net-zero guide for nine key sectors

The sectors that produce the majority of global greenhouse-gas emissions face a steep challenge to decarbonize, but our research shows that solutions are within reach. In many cases, a transformation is well underway. This collection draws together articles and reports that lay out a pathway to net zero for nine emissions-intensive industries.