23 September 2025 | New York City . At New York Climate Week 2025, the Book and Claim Community welcomed the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) to its Secretariat, where it will join Smart Freight Centre (SFC) in co-leading the Community’s work. This evolution reflects the Community’s ongoing commitment to collaborative governance and system alignment as book and claim approaches continue to scale.
Since its inception, the Book and Claim Community has made significant progress, including engaging over 300 organisations, developing guidance and tools for credible book and claim implementation, and facilitating pilots demonstrating scalable, market-based solutions for industry decarbonisation. These early achievements have laid a strong foundation for collective action and technical alignment across sectors, thanks also to the work of RMI.
The Secretariat was set up by SFC to ensure broad industry convergence around the book and claim chain of custody model’s use in transportation, harmonising work on standards, registry and interoperability globally. The Secretariat exists to deliver the work of the Book and Claim Community by supporting transparent governance, facilitating collaboration, and turning shared insight into practical guidance and tools. With the addition of RSB, the Secretariat is further strengthened in its ability to convene stakeholders, support technical development, and uphold integrity in a rapidly evolving ecosystem.
.
“RSB’s involvement reflects our long-standing commitment to credibility, neutrality and collaboration in supporting industrial decarbonisation,” said Elena Schmidt, Executive Director at RSB. “We are here to listen, facilitate, and support the Community as it works toward trusted, consensus-based solutions that can scale with integrity.”
“Since Smart Freight Centre (SFC) set up the Book and Claim Community, it has benefitted greatly from the early leadership alongside RMI in bringing stakeholders together and laying the groundwork for collective action. With RSB now joining the Secretariat with SFC, we can build on this strong foundation.” said Christoph Wolff, Chief Executive Officer at SFC. “Their expertise in sustainability standards and stakeholder engagement will further strengthen our ability to deliver transparent governance, technical credibility, and practical tools that accelerate decarbonisation across freight and beyond.”
.
Supporting system harmonisation in the Community’sthird year
While the Community will continue to be a uniting, educating and convening voice for Book and Claim in heavy transportation in its third year, it will continue to drive harmonisation, unification and accelerated scale-up and make good book and claim visible through pilots and engagement with sector initiatives and frameworks, such as SBTi and GHG Protocol.
Transportation mode-specific working groups will help bring together experts and tackle modal aspects effectively. Most importantly, the Community will also be working on a series of deliverables that will help the alignment and convergence between different actors, systems and frameworks in transportation to ensure that the sector has a strong and aligned voice when it comes to decarbonising freight transportation with book and claim.
.
What RSB brings to the Community
RSB joins the Secretariat with over a decade of experience in developing and operating credible book and claim systems. This work began with the publication of the first RSB Book & Claim Manual in 2015 and has since evolved through continuous development in partnership with a broad and diverse multi-stakeholder community.
Key contributions include:
Launching the first Book & Claim Manual in 2015, with iterative updates shaped through ongoing stakeholder engagement
Operating a digital registry since 2023 to facilitate traceable and transparent transactions
Convening more than 70 organisations through its own Book & Claim Platform to co-develop system improvements and new use cases
.
.
RSB brings technical rigour, cross-sectoral experience in aviation, maritime and materials, and a facilitative approach rooted in consensus-building. These capabilities support the Secretariat in delivering on the Community’s shared goals.
“We believe the strength of the Book and Claim Community lies in its diversity,” added Schmidt. “Our role is to help create the conditions for collaboration, technical alignment, and shared progress on decarbonisation.”
“This diversity is exactly what enables the Community to develop solutions that are credible, practical, and widely accepted across sectors,” said Wolff. “By bringing together multiple perspectives, we can ensure that book and claim systems scale with integrity and deliver real impact.”ale with integrity and deliver real impact.”
.
A collaborative and neutral Secretariat
The Secretariat serves the Community by ensuring its work remains grounded in consensus, transparency, and collective input. While each co-lead brings unique capabilities, the Governing Board and the wider Community membership guide all decisions and priorities.
RSB’s and Smart Freight Centre’s collaboration as leaders and standard-setters in this field reflect the Secretariat’s commitment to neutrality, the ability to coordinate effectively across sectors, geographies, and technical domains and be a truly neutral convening voice for the sector.
.
Looking ahead
With more than 300 participating organisations and over 1,000 practitioners, the Book and Claim Community is well-positioned to shape credible, aligned systems for market-based decarbonisation.
The strengthened Secretariat will continue to focus on delivering value to the Community by supporting trusted and scalable solutions grounded in shared principles.
.
.
About the Book and Claim Community
The Book and Claim Community is a global initiative designed to connect, support, and accelerate collaboration among diverse stakeholders working to decarbonise heavy transport. By fostering dialogue and alignment, the Community brings together more than 300 participating organisations and over 1,000 individuals to drive acceptance, harmonisation and scaling of book and claim in decarbonisation of heavy transportation. The Book & Claim Community joins like-minded stakeholders in shaping the transportation sector’s voice for credible, aligned systems for market-based decarbonisation. See: www.bookandclaimcommunity.org
.
About RSB
The Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) is a global, multi-stakeholder organisation driving the just and sustainable transition to a bio-based and circular economy. RSB’s sustainability framework is widely recognised as the world’s most credible and peer-reviewed foundation for delivering positive climate, environmental and social impacts. Developed through consensus by a diverse membership community, this framework underpins RSB’s certification system, Advisory Services, programmes, partnerships, and policy engagement. From global brands and civil society organisations to innovators and other key decision-makers, RSB supports partners worldwide to turn sustainability ambition into credible action. See: www.rsb.org
.
About Smart Freight Centre
Smart Freight Centre (SFC) is a globally active non-profit organisation for climate action in the freight sector. Our goal is to mobilise the global logistics ecosystem, in particular our members and partners, in tracking and reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. We accelerate the reduction of logistics emissions to achieve a zero-emission global logistics sector by 2050 or earlier, consistent with 1.5° pathways. See: www.smartfreightcentre.org
