Read The Diligence Checklist Before It Reads You
Tideline and Prime Coalition just gave allocators an 18-question test for climate funds
Lots of interesting reports being published. Today is a Founder’s to-do list in response to Tideline and Prime Coalition’s guide.
Tideline and Prime Coalition just published a guide teaching pension funds, endowments, and foundations how to vet climate solutions managers. It includes an 18-question due diligence checklist.
That checklist was not written for you. Which is exactly why you should read it.
The questions a fund’s investors train it to answer are the questions that eventually land on the company. When an LP asks a GP to prove it can measure climate outcomes, that GP turns around and asks its portfolio companies the same thing. You are the last stop. So the smart move is to get the checklist before it gets you.
Here is what it asks, and what to have ready.
Diligence Framework Convergence
The guide did not invent its diligence framework. It synthesized four that allocators already use: BlueMark’s Fund ID, the GIIN’s Climate Solutions Investing Framework, ILPA’s ESG assessment tool, and Project Frame’s pre-investment guidance. That matters because it tells you this is not one advisor’s opinion. It is where the market is converging.
BlueMark alone has run its Fund ID assessment on more than 50 fund managers, scoring each across four pillars. The GIIN launched its framework at London Climate Action Week in June 2025 and now runs a working group to standardize it. The direction of travel is clear: climate diligence is professionalizing, and it is getting more structured every quarter.
For a founder, that means the days of a warm intro and a good story are ending. The funds you want are being graded, and they will grade you the same way.
Get a Head Start
The checklist breaks into four buckets. Each one maps to a question you should be able to answer cold.
Strategy. Do you have a written climate thesis, and does your business actually match it? The guide calls this a “theory of change,” which is jargon for a simple chain: this is the problem, this is what we do, this is the measurable climate result. Investors also look for eligibility thresholds, meaning a clear line for what counts as a climate solution and what does not. If your deck says climate but your revenue comes from something adjacent, this is where it shows.
Governance. For a startup, this is simpler than it looks. Investors want to know climate outcomes are somebody's job, and at an early company that somebody is usually you. The fund-level version of this question, tying compensation to climate milestones, is an advanced practice the report doesn't expect from early companies, so don't manufacture it. What you do need: a clear answer on who is accountable, and honesty that at your stage, accountability sits with the founder.
Management. Do you have a repeatable process for measuring outcomes, or do you improvise a number for each pitch? This is the one founders underestimate. Investors can tell the difference between a company that tracks emissions avoided the same way every quarter and one that reverse-engineers a figure the night before a meeting.
Reporting. Can you show results, including the misses? The guide rewards managers who disclose when they fall short of projections. Counterintuitive, but it tracks. A founder who reports a missed milestone honestly reads as more credible than one whose numbers are always perfect.
Where the Bar Actually Sits
The most useful thing in the framework is a distinction it makes inside each bucket. Every practice is sorted into foundational or advanced.
Foundational practices are table stakes. A documented thesis. A named owner for climate outcomes. A consistent measurement method. These are the things a fund expects every serious company to have.
Advanced practices are the extras that separate the top managers: compensation tied to climate KPIs, third-party verification of results, tracking long-term system change beyond your own metrics.
You do not need the advanced list to raise. You need the foundational list documented before diligence starts.
What to do This Week
You can build most of this into a data room right now, before you need it.
Write the one-paragraph version of your climate thesis: the problem, what you do, the measurable result. Pick the two or three metrics you will report every quarter, and write down how you calculate them, including the counterfactual, meaning what would have happened without you. Then draft the honest version of your last progress update, misses included.
The funds writing climate checks are being held to a higher standard than they were two years ago, and they are passing it straight through to the companies they back. You can treat that as a hurdle that ambushes you mid-raise. Or you can treat it as homework, do it early, and walk into the room already sounding like the fund you want on your cap table.
Next week: why this same rigor, the discipline that makes climate finally investable, is also the thing quietly breaking venture math for hardware.