Portfolio Impact Tools

The Portfolio Carbon J‑Curve™

Climate ventures cost carbon before they save it. Model your own portfolio's net trajectory — the carbon debt it carries, the year it pays that debt back, and where it lands by 2050.

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Your PortfolioINPUTS
Number of companies
climate ventures held
Venture-type mix
Hardware40%
Infrastructure20%
Software40%

Hardware and infrastructure re-engineer a process and abate its full emissions; software optimises a process it doesn't replace, so it reaches only an efficiency slice of the same outcome. A more physical portfolio carries heavier carbon debt but a far higher impact ceiling.

Average stage at investment

Sets how far each company sits from commercial scale — and so how late the benefit curve inflects.

Average vintage year2023

When the capital was deployed — the year each company's curves start.

Outcome scenario

Model assumptions
Exit-outcome ladder — Figure 4 · peak annual mitigation, MtCO₂e / yr
Write-off Breakeven Low Medium High
Embodied-carbon ratio · % of lifetime mitigated emissions
Hardware Infrastructure Software Scaling factor κ (τ = κ·2t₀)
Time to commercial scale · yrs to 50% adoption, at seed stage
Hardware Infrastructure Software
Software impact ceiling · % of process emissions software can abate
Software ceiling
Carbon break-even year
–
cumulative net turns positive
Maximum carbon debt
–
trough of the J-curve
2050 — cumulative net
–
gross before incurred carbon
Cumulative net impact
Net impact by venture type

Annual

The net mitigation rate in a single year, MtCO₂e/yr. Annual net turning positive means the portfolio stops adding to its carbon debt — it occurs at the trough of the cumulative curve.

Cumulative

The integral of the annual rate since vintage. The cumulative net crossing zero is the carbon break-even year — the debt is fully repaid.

Net

Avoided emissions minus the incurred (embodied and operational) carbon. Only the net series goes negative — and only it produces a J.

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