Climate advisor agreements: a one-page setup template

That is usually the moment when the important questions begin.

Consider a common early-stage situation: a direct-air-capture founder is discussing an advisory role with a former utility executive. The proposed exchange is half a percent of the company for several hours of strategic advice each month, with equity vesting over two years and no cash compensation. On paper, it is a clean deal.

Then the details arrive. The advisor’s former employer may hold patents that overlap with the startup’s chemistry. The founder’s finance lead may question whether 0.5% is proportionate to the actual time commitment. A scientific co-founder may ask what the monthly hours include when the advisor has several other boards and consulting roles. None of those questions is answered by the percentage alone.

Climate founders — particularly in deeptech, where a single piece of scientific guidance can redirect a research roadmap — regularly treat the decision to bring on an advisor as casual and the paperwork as a checkbox. The opposite is closer to the truth. The paperwork is where the relationship gets defined: what the advisor is expected to do, what the company is granting, who owns the resulting work, and what happens when the arrangement stops working.

This is where the FAST framework — the Founder / Advisor Standard Template, originally released by the Founder Institute in 2011 — earned its place in the ClimateTech founder’s toolkit. It is not a workaround for legal diligence. It is the closest thing the early-stage ecosystem has to a shared vocabulary for what an advisor is, what they receive, and what they owe the company.

The FAST framework: what “one-page” actually buys you

The appeal of FAST is its length. It is roughly one page, written in relatively plain English, and designed to be signed without consuming the legal budget of a pre-seed company. It emerged partly because the alternative — a bespoke advisory agreement drafted from scratch — could cost more in legal fees than the equity being granted was worth.

For a pre-seed ClimateTech founder operating around a SAFE, an angel round, or a still-evolving cap table, that distinction matters. A lightweight template can make it possible to have a serious conversation before either side spends weeks negotiating language.

But FAST gives you a structure, not a shortcut.

The framework generally defines the advisor as an independent contractor rather than an employee, sets out an equity grant and vesting schedule, includes confidentiality and intellectual-property provisions, and establishes a termination process. Those are useful foundations. They are not a complete corporate authorization process, an option plan, or a substitute for advice on securities, tax, employment, university, or intellectual-property law.

The template is the agreement about the advisor relationship. It is not necessarily the document that creates and authorizes the underlying equity grant. Founders who treat FAST as a complete legal product — the way they might treat a SaaS subscription — tend to discover the gap when an investor, counsel, or cap-table provider asks for the board approval, grant notice, option-plan authority, or stock records supporting the promise.

FAST Version 2 was released in August 2017, and Version 3 was released in July 2026. The basic architecture has remained recognizable: independent-contractor status, equity compensation, a defined time commitment, vesting over time, confidentiality, IP assignment, and a way to end the relationship.

That continuity is part of the value. ClimateTech investors, accelerators, and startup lawyers who see many early-stage advisory arrangements can recognize the structure quickly. It signals that the company is working from a baseline rather than improvising every term. But recognition is not validation. A familiar template still needs to match the company’s jurisdiction, equity plan, financing documents, institutional constraints, and the actual work the advisor will perform.

Before anyone signs, the founder should be able to answer five practical questions:

• What entity is granting the equity, and under which equity plan?
• Is the proposed grant an option, restricted stock, or another form of security?
• Who has legal authority to approve the grant?
• What specific work is the advisor expected to perform?
• What existing IP, employment, university, or consulting obligations could affect the relationship?

If those answers are unclear, the one-page format is hiding complexity rather than removing it.

The 0.25% to 1.0% equity range: where the real conversation lives

The standard FAST range for advisor equity is commonly presented as 0.25% to 1.0% of fully diluted capitalization. That span — a fourfold difference between the floor and the ceiling — is where most of the trade-offs in an advisor relationship get negotiated, even when nobody describes the conversation as a negotiation.

Below 0.25%, the grant may be too small to create meaningful alignment unless the advisor is contributing in a very limited or highly specific way. Above 1.0%, the company is giving away significant upside to someone who is not joining full-time. Neither boundary is an automatic rule. Both should force the founder to articulate what the advisor is expected to contribute and why the proposed percentage is proportionate.

Founders sometimes anchor to 1.0% to land a prestigious name: a former government official, a venture partner, a chief scientist, or a senior executive from a major industrial company. Sometimes that is the right call. A well-connected advisor can shorten a sales cycle, make a difficult introduction, or help a company understand how a utility, manufacturer, regulator, or infrastructure buyer actually makes decisions.

Often, though, the prestige is doing more work than the advisor. The marginal value of a famous name can be lower than the value of a domain operator who responds quickly, reads the technical material, and stays engaged when the company encounters an unglamorous problem.

In ClimateTech, the question usually splits along two axes.

For strategic advisors — utility executives, regulators, project-finance professionals, policy specialists, and experienced climate founders — the higher end of the range may be defensible when the person has a credible ability to make relevant introductions or help with a defined commercial obstacle. The key word is relevant. A large contact list is not the same as access to the specific buyer, permitting authority, supplier, or project partner the company needs.

For scientific advisors — faculty researchers, lab directors, principal engineers, and technical specialists — the constraint is often time rather than value. An experienced researcher may be extraordinarily valuable per hour and still have only a few hours a month available for external work. The equity should preserve attention and alignment, not create the fiction that the advisor is providing fractional executive labor.

A useful way to frame the grant is to separate four variables:

1. Expected time. Estimate the hours the advisor can realistically provide, not the number they mention during an enthusiastic first meeting.

2. Type of contribution. A monthly technical review is different from leading a regulatory workstream, recruiting a senior hire, or opening a series of customer conversations.

3. Access and accountability. Introductions matter only when they are connected to a clear purpose and followed through.

4. Scarcity of expertise. A narrow scientific capability that the team genuinely lacks may justify a different grant from broadly available business advice.

The equity number is a proxy for seriousness. Set it where you can defend it at your next board meeting without flinching.

The honest calculation is not a precise valuation exercise. It is a discipline for exposing assumptions. Estimate the realistic hours per month, consider the advisor’s fair-market opportunity cost, and then discount the result by the probability that the promised work will actually happen. If the resulting annual value is meaningfully lower than the equity being offered, the company may be overpaying in dilution. If it is meaningfully higher, the company may be under-investing in a relationship that could remove a major technical or commercial bottleneck.

The calculation should also account for the company’s stage. A 0.5% grant before a financing may represent a different economic commitment from a 0.5% grant after the cap table has expanded. The percentage should be measured against the capitalization definition used in the agreement and understood in the context of the company’s fully diluted capitalization. Do not rely on an informal percentage written in an email while leaving the underlying number of shares unresolved.

A practical way to position the grant

This table is shorthand, not a compensation schedule. The ranges are not a substitute for judgment, and they should not be copied into an agreement without considering the company’s stage and the advisor’s actual role.

The more important distinction is between a broad title and a defined job. “Strategic advisor” can mean one board call a quarter, weekly operating help, or a handful of high-value introductions. Those are materially different relationships. If the company cannot describe the expected output in a sentence, it is not ready to choose the percentage.

Vesting and time commitments: the calendar is the contract

The FAST structure traditionally uses a two-year vesting schedule with monthly releases and, importantly, without the standard one-year cliff often used for employee equity grants.

That difference is not cosmetic. An employee cliff gives a company time to assess a full-time hire before any equity vests. Advisor relationships work differently. The company is usually buying access, judgment, and continuity in smaller increments. Monthly vesting allows the grant to track the period during which the advisor is actually contributing.

The trade-off is straightforward: an advisor who leaves after three months may retain some vested equity. That is the cost of avoiding a cliff. The company receives a lower-friction commitment from someone who may not accept a year-long probationary structure, while the advisor receives compensation for work already performed.

Whether that trade-off is appropriate depends on the role. For a narrowly defined project that can be evaluated quickly, a shorter vesting period or milestone-based arrangement may make more sense. For an advisor whose value compounds as they learn the technology, team, and market, a longer relationship with monthly vesting may be more coherent.

The time-commitment range is similarly broad. Five hours a month might mean a recurring call, a quarterly review, and occasional email. Twenty hours a month begins to look more like fractional executive work. If the company needs twenty hours of hands-on commercial, regulatory, or technical execution, it may need a consultant, employee, or part-time executive rather than an advisor agreement.

Most credible ClimateTech advisor relationships land somewhere around a modest recurring commitment, with spikes around specific events:

• fundraising preparation;
• pilot design and review;
• customer or utility diligence;
• regulatory submissions;
• technical hiring;
• supply-chain or manufacturing decisions;
• grant applications and research collaborations.

The mistake is treating the baseline as the actual commitment. A monthly number is only useful if both sides agree on what counts toward it. Does reading a technical memo count? Does an introduction count? Is the advisor expected to attend customer calls, or merely suggest who the founder should contact? Is a board meeting separate from the monthly advisory time?

A side letter, schedule, or short exhibit can make those expectations concrete. The language does not need to turn the advisor into an employee. It does need to give the company a way to recognize whether the relationship is functioning.

“Quarterly review of pilot data” is more useful than “strategic guidance.” “Two introductions to relevant utility or infrastructure contacts during the first six months” is more useful than “support business development.” “Review of the proposed research direction before the next funding application” gives both sides a shared moment for accountability.

Specificity also protects scientific advisors. Researchers may have university rules, sponsored-research obligations, or limits on outside consulting. A defined scope gives them something concrete to disclose internally and helps prevent the startup from making an informal request that conflicts with their institutional responsibilities.

The agreement should also distinguish advice from authority. An advisor can recommend a technical path without having the right to approve spending, bind the company, speak on its behalf, or make commitments to a customer or research institution. Climate startups often work across several organizations at once; unclear authority can create problems even when everyone is acting in good faith.

IP assignment and confidentiality: the clauses that actually protect you

For many startups, IP and confidentiality provisions are standard legal hygiene. For ClimateTech founders, they are often the clauses that determine whether the company can survive diligence.

The advisor pool for a climate startup — especially in hardtech, advanced materials, carbon removal, energy systems, or biotech-adjacent fields — overlaps heavily with universities, national laboratories, corporate R&D groups, and other startups. The people the company most wants may also have pre-existing obligations to employers, institutions, sponsors, or collaborators.

That creates several distinct risks.

A scientific advisor may be working under a sponsored research agreement that covers related compounds, methods, or equipment. A university may claim rights in inventions created using its facilities or by its employees. A former executive may still be subject to confidentiality restrictions from a previous employer. A grid-software specialist may be working as a fractional employee for a utility that is also a prospective customer. A researcher may want to discuss a technical problem while being unable to transfer the underlying invention.

A standard IP assignment clause does not automatically resolve those conflicts. It says, in effect, that IP the advisor contributes to the company is assigned to the company. The harder question is whether the advisor has the right to make that assignment in the first place.

Before signing, ask the advisor to disclose relevant restrictions in writing. The request should be framed as a clarification, not an accusation. The company needs to know:

• whether the advisor is employed by or affiliated with a university, laboratory, company, or other research institution;
• whether those institutions claim ownership of inventions or work product created during the engagement;
• whether the advisor is bound by confidentiality obligations that could limit what they share;
• whether the advisor is advising a competitor or a potential customer;
• whether the advisor will use company facilities, data, samples, code, or other materials;
• whether any government-funded or sponsored research rules affect the proposed work.

The company should be careful about what it asks the advisor to assign. An agreement should not casually claim ownership of the advisor’s pre-existing inventions, general know-how, academic work, or unrelated consulting output. A well-drafted document can distinguish pre-existing IP from new work product and identify background materials that the advisor is bringing into the relationship.

For scientific advisors, that distinction matters particularly because “advice” can blur into invention. A conversation about a process may lead to a new experimental direction. A review of data may suggest a modification that becomes part of the company’s patent strategy. The founder should not wait until a patent filing or financing diligence process to discover that the person who contributed the idea could not legally transfer it.

Confidentiality should be equally practical. Identify what information the advisor will receive, how it may be used, and what happens to documents and access when the relationship ends. The obligation should survive termination where appropriate, but it should not be drafted so broadly that it conflicts with a university’s publication rules, a legal disclosure obligation, or the advisor’s existing duties.

The one-page agreement assumes the advisor’s house is in order. Your job is to verify that, not assume it.

The cleanest outcome is not always a signed agreement. If an advisor cannot explain their institutional obligations, refuses to disclose overlapping relationships, or wants access to sensitive technical material before those issues are resolved, pausing the relationship is a reasonable business decision. A conflict discovered before signing is a conversation. A conflict discovered during diligence can become a financing event.

Operationalizing the agreement: board approval and termination

A FAST agreement is not self-executing. Two operational steps sit between the signed page and a functioning advisor relationship: authorizing the equity correctly and defining what happens when the relationship ends.

Formal authorization and equity records

The company must follow the approval process required by its jurisdiction, organizational documents, equity plan, and applicable securities rules. In many corporations, issuing options or stock requires formal board approval or another legally authorized corporate action. The agreement itself does not create that authority.

The relevant approval should identify the grant, the recipient, the type and number of securities, the applicable equity plan, the vesting terms, and any other information required by the company’s records and governing law. The cap table, grant notice, option agreement, and board resolutions should tell the same story.

This is where early-stage companies often create avoidable confusion. An advisor signs a document promising a percentage, but the company has not determined the precise share count. The board has not approved the grant. The equity plan may not contain enough available shares. The company may later use a different capitalization definition when preparing for a financing.

Those gaps are manageable when found early. They become expensive when an investor, auditor, or acquirer asks the company to reconcile the promise with the actual authorization.

If the company does not yet have a board, do not assume that the founders can simply approve an equity issuance by informal agreement or an undocumented email. The legally required approval process depends on the company’s jurisdiction, entity type, charter documents, equity plan, and applicable law. Obtain the formal board approval or other legally authorized corporate action required in that jurisdiction, and complete the corresponding equity documentation before treating the grant as issued. A startup lawyer or qualified corporate counsel should confirm the process rather than relying on a generic template.

The same caution applies to tax and securities treatment. An option grant, restricted stock grant, and promise of future equity are not interchangeable. The company should understand what it is granting and when the advisor’s rights begin.

Termination and the ninety-day question

Either party can generally end the arrangement with written notice, subject to the specific agreement. Unvested equity typically stops vesting when the relationship ends. Vested equity remains subject to the terms of the grant instrument and the company’s equity plan.

FAST materials commonly include a ninety-day post-termination exercise period for vested options. That period can create a significant practical obligation for the advisor: they may need to decide quickly whether to exercise, pay the required amount, and accept the associated tax and financial consequences. The company should not treat the exercise window as boilerplate. It should make sure the advisor understands which rights are actually being granted and what remains subject to the separate option or equity documents.

The clause founders often underweight is the one dealing with ongoing projects. If the advisor is reviewing a regulatory submission, participating in a pilot design, or helping with a critical customer process when the relationship ends, the agreement should make the handoff predictable.

A short handoff provision can address:

• return or deletion of confidential information;
• transfer of working documents and relevant correspondence;
• completion or orderly transfer of defined deliverables;
• removal of access to systems, datasets, laboratories, and collaboration tools;
• treatment of public references to the advisor’s role;
• confirmation that no further equity vests after the termination date.

The point is not to punish an advisor for leaving. Advisors can exit for legitimate reasons: a new job, a university restriction, a conflict of interest, a health issue, or a change in the company’s direction. The point is to prevent a clean departure from becoming an operational crisis.

Dilution is a long game; a broken handoff is immediate. The termination clause protects the part of the relationship that equity cannot repair.

Termination language should also work in both directions. The company should be able to end the relationship if the advisor becomes inactive, creates a conflict, breaches confidentiality, or makes unauthorized commitments. The advisor should have a clear way to leave if the company changes its business, requests work outside the agreed scope, or creates a conflict with the advisor’s other obligations.

The one-page setup that works in practice

A useful climate startup advisor agreement template is not the shortest possible document. It is the shortest document that makes the important boundaries visible.

Before sending the template, the founder should prepare a short written schedule covering:

1. Role and scope. What decisions, workstreams, or introductions fall within the advisor’s remit?

2. Time commitment. What is the expected monthly baseline, and when might the commitment increase temporarily?

3. Deliverables. What concrete outputs will demonstrate that the relationship is active?

4. Equity. What security is being granted, under which plan, and how is the percentage translated into a number of shares or options?

5. Vesting. When does vesting begin, how often does it occur, and what happens on termination?

6. Conflicts and institutional restrictions. Which employers, universities, labs, customers, competitors, and research sponsors need to be disclosed?

7. Confidentiality and IP. What can the advisor access, what can they contribute, and what cannot be assigned?

8. Authority. What may the advisor say or do on behalf of the company, and what requires founder or board approval?

9. Handoff. What happens to documents, introductions, and active workstreams when the engagement ends?

10. Corporate approvals. Which legally required approvals and equity records must be completed before the grant is treated as issued?

This preparation also improves the negotiation. An advisor who asks for 0.75% may be responding to an unclear scope rather than demanding excessive equity. A founder who offers 0.25% may be underestimating the time required to make the role useful. Once the work is visible, the percentage becomes easier to discuss without turning the conversation into a contest of personalities.

The agreement should be reviewed when the company changes materially. A scientific advisor brought in before a pilot may later become a board observer, paid consultant, grant collaborator, or member of a formal scientific advisory board. Those roles carry different expectations and may require different documents. Do not let an old advisor template silently govern a new relationship.

The hard-earned lesson

The strongest advisor relationships are rarely dramatic. There is no heroic rescue, no single introduction that fixes the company, and no template that eliminates judgment. More often, the founder asks the uncomfortable IP question before sharing sensitive material, calibrates the equity to the actual commitment, defines one or two useful deliverables, and obtains the required corporate approval before the grant becomes part of the cap table.

The advisor may still miss a quarterly review. A pilot may still fail. A promised introduction may still go nowhere. Good paperwork does not turn uncertainty into certainty.

What it does is make the uncertainty manageable.

The FAST framework is genuinely useful. It can reduce unnecessary drafting, accelerate a conversation, and give a young company a recognizable baseline for an advisor relationship. It cannot determine whether the person belongs on the cap table, whether their institution owns the work they contribute, whether the proposed equity is proportionate, or whether the company has authorized the grant correctly.

That part remains the founder’s responsibility, with jurisdiction-specific legal guidance where the stakes require it.

In ClimateTech, advisor relationships often outlive the technical problem they were hired to solve. A regulatory advisor may become a commercial advisor. A scientific advisor may become a research collaborator. A utility executive may become a customer, investor, or board member. The one-page agreement is therefore not the end of the relationship. It is the first record of how seriously both sides intend to treat it.