🎯 Net Zero Pathway
Set a science-based target for a UAE cement maker, then invest your way to net zero before the carbon price catches you.
The goal
Stay on a 1.5°C-style pathway from 2025 to 2050: −20% by 2030, −40% by 2035, −60% by 2040 and −90% by 2050, spending capital wisely and reporting honestly. Your team runs the climate strategy of a fictional cement company emitting 2.7 million tonnes CO₂e a year: clinker chemistry, kiln fuel, electricity and the value chain.
How a round works
The four rounds
- 1
🎯 2026–2030 · Set the target
Set your 2030 target and net-zero year. Solar power, efficiency and supplier programmes are cheap quick wins.
What it teaches: Cheap levers first, but they run out.
- 2
🛃 2031–2035 · Carbon gets a price
AED 50 per tonne and a border carbon fee on exports. Investors compare progress with your 2030 promise.
What it teaches: Delivering what you promised builds trust.
- 3
⚗️ 2036–2040 · The hard part
Easy wins are gone. Clinker substitution, fuel switching and carbon capture get cheaper; carbon costs AED 150.
What it teaches: Falling technology costs and rising carbon prices make the hard projects worth it.
- 4
🏁 2041–2050 · Net zero
Cut at least 90% and neutralise the residual with permanent removals. Carbon costs AED 300.
What it teaches: Net zero is not zero emissions: it is deep cuts plus removals for the rest.
Your decisions
| 2030 target and net-zero year | Period 1 | Promise a % cut by 2030 (the pathway needs 20%) and a net-zero year (2040–2060). Promise what you can deliver: missing it costs −8 trust. |
|---|---|---|
| Capital plan | Every period | Split the budget across six projects. Each shows its cost per tonne of yearly cut and how much it can still cut. Removals are one-off tonnes for the end. Sort by cost per tonne; cheap levers run out, expensive ones get cheaper. |
| Reporting | Every period | Honest progress report, spin with ambition and offsets, or silence. In 2050 you may declare net zero. Spin while off track: −6 trust. A false net-zero claim: −15. |
Worked example. AED 135m on solar at AED 450 per tonne of yearly cut gives 135 × 1000 ÷ 450 = 300 kt a year, enough to remove all Scope 2.
How you are scored
Period score = 70% progress against the pathway + 30% value for money (tonnes cut versus the cheapest possible mix).
Event cards
- Green hydrogen breakthrough. Fuel switching costs 30% less.
- Carbon capture hub. Capture costs 20% less.
- Interest rates jump. Next period's budget falls 20%.
- Green bond. Next period's budget rises 25%.
Students: join in 30 seconds
- Scan the QR code on the big screen, or open games.inlabsgroup.com/net-zero-pathway and type the code.
- Type your first name. No app, no account.
- Join a team or create one. You get a role with a job on every round.
- Each round: read the briefing and data, fill in your decisions, predict your score, submit.
Key words
- Science-based target
- A cut in emissions in line with what climate science says is needed to limit warming to 1.5°C.
- Net zero
- Cutting emissions by around 90% and neutralising the residual with permanent removals.
- Clinker
- The baked ingredient in cement whose chemistry releases CO₂.
- Carbon capture and storage
- Catching CO₂ at the chimney and storing it underground.
- Border carbon adjustment
- A fee on imports equal to the carbon price the importer would have paid at home.
- Removal
- Taking CO₂ out of the air permanently, for example by direct air capture.
For facilitators 4 rounds · about 50 minutes
Facilitator access
- On the projector laptop open games.inlabsgroup.com/net-zero-pathway/?host.
- Sign in with your facilitator PIN or demo code.
- In Setup choose Team, Individual or Hybrid, the number of teams (up to 20), rounds and minutes.
- Press Q for the big join QR code; students appear in People.
- Press Start. Reveal each round, discuss the answer key on the projector, then draw an event card.
Joining with the QR code
- As a team
- One plan per company; the CFO splits the budget.
- Alone
- Everyone runs a company: compare pathways on the projector.
- Hybrid
- Everyone plans on their phone; the team score is the average.
Setup tips
- Show the pathway line chart before Period 1.
- Explain cost per tonne of yearly cut with the solar example.
- Use the hydrogen or capture event in Period 3.
Watch for
- Over-ambitious targets in Period 1.
- Teams that ignore the falling cost of capture.
- Spin when off track.
Console controls
Start, Reveal, pause or set the timer, step back, draw or write event cards, message every screen, freeze the projector, spotlight a team, hide names, add bots, move players, award or fine, change score weights, start a new game or end it early, show all teams, and download the CSV of every decision and result. Keys: P projector, Q join QR.
Debrief questions
- Which lever gave the most tonnes per dirham, and why did it run out?
- Did your 2030 target match what you delivered?
- Why can removals only neutralise the last few percent?
Probing questions
- Why do the cheap levers run out?
- Why can removals only neutralise the last few percent?
- What does a carbon price do to the business case?