Industrial transitions, modeled at facility resolution.
Plant by plant. Trade flow by trade flow. Policy by policy.
Decision-grade analysis for finance, engineering, legal, and regulator-facing audiences.
What we do
Bottom-up techno-economic modeling of industrial transition. Scenario-explicit, uncertainty-honest, principal-led.
Facility-level modeling
Real industrial assets, not country averages. Plant-by-plant switching dynamics, capacity evolution, and infrastructure constraints.
Trade flows and policy transmission
Bilateral commodity flows, embodied emissions, CBAM and tariff impacts, and how subsidies and incentives propagate through global supply chains.
Uncertainty and scenarios
Monte Carlo and sensitivity analysis where material. We state what is optimized, ignored, and fragile, ranges over false precision.
Selected engagements
Work delivered under the Subtext Systems brand (founded 2025).
Ceres · 2026 · Active
The Future of American Steel
A facility-level techno-economic study of decarbonization pathways for the US steel sector, built on IndustryPath. It pairs plant-level technology and cost modeling with regional case studies and stakeholder convenings to test where and how near-zero steelmaking can realistically scale. The full report is forthcoming from Ceres.
European Climate Foundation · 2026 · Published
Guidelines for Decarbonizing Industry in Time to Meet Global Climate Goals
Contributing analytical work to a multi-author industrial-decarbonization rate study, funded by the European Climate Foundation and published at Columbia CGEP.
Organizations we've worked with
Through Subtext Systems and in prior roles.
- Buro Happold
- Ceres
- ClimateWorks Foundation
- Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy
- Ecojustice Canada
- Environmental Defender Law Center
- European Climate Foundation
- Fair Steel Coalition
- IDDRI
- IISD
- Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
- International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
- S-Curve Economics
- UCL Energy Institute
Principal
Dr. Francis G.N. Li
Founder of Subtext Systems. First author on Li et al. 2026, Energy Policy, technology and policy options for achieving net zero steel manufacturing in the United States.
Commission a scope
For scoping studies, full techno-economic analyses, or commissioned model extensions.
Subtext Systems works with foundations, NGOs, research institutes, consultancies, and policy teams on industrial transition, energy systems, and uncertainty analysis.
Contact us at:
info [at] subtextsystems [dot] com