OPINION: Carbon-neutral. Net-zero. Climate positive, carbon negative, carbon positive.
You’d have to live under a rock to avoid having heard at least one of these terms, promised by so many big businesses in the not-so-distant future. In the last few weeks alone, Shell, Unilever, and H&M have all pledged to become net-zero businesses.
They’re not alone either. The Financial Times reports at least a fifth of the world’s 2000 largest public companies have made a net-zero commitment.
But for many of us, the question remains: What does any of this actually mean? And is it enough to tackle the climate crisis?
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Here’s the short answer. They’re all better than doing nothing. Any of them can be as useful when done properly. None of them, alone, will prevent further climate warming.
Dominico Zapata/Stuff
Offsetting can be a useful tool when done properly through reputable providers and is better than doing nothing at all, Ethique founder Brianne West says.
The longer answer requires you to know more about what each of these policies mean. Since most of these terms sound similar, they can be difficult to untangle. So, here’s how it breaks down.
A truly carbon-neutral company is committing to not increasing their carbon emissions and offsets any carbon they produce from supply chain and sourcing to freighting their product around – often by planting trees.
They pay companies like Ecologi or Ekos to invest that money into tree planting or renewable energy technologies.
Offsetting can be a useful tool when done properly through reputable providers and is better than doing nothing at all.
But on its own it’s not going to make a dent in limiting global temperature increase, because it doesn’t require the business to reduce the amount of carbon they produce in the first place – and that’s essential.
So, is net-zero better? It should be, in theory. A net-zero company looks for ways to reduce their carbon production in the first place and then offsets any carbon they can’t eliminate.
That sounds ideal but in practice, many businesses – and governments – use the term “net-zero” to refer to a far-off future of carbon reduction without a concrete plan as to how they’ll do it.
The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) recently found that most net-zero pledges were vague and inconsistent with 2030 national commitments. Without a plan, you don’t know how you’re going to reduce your carbon production and therefore are very unlikely to manage it.
What about carbon positive, carbon negative, or climate positive businesses? Confusingly, they’re all roughly the same thing.
All three terms are used to indicate that the business offsets more carbon than they emit – generally 120 per cent or more. But critically, the company also commits to continually reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.
Supplied
West says trees should not be allowed to become a “magic sustainability shield” for big businesses to hide the real damage behind.
It used to be known as “carbon negativity” to indicate that the business’ carbon footprint was in deficit. Then some marketing genius coined the term “carbon positive” to mean the same thing, and it all became a bit of a pickle.
For that reason, I think climate positive is a less confusing choice – and it’s one we use at Ethique. Ultimately, whichever of the three you use, it’s like a bulked-up version of carbon neutrality: it’s definitely a useful tool, but it’s still not enough on its own.
The problem with any of these policies is that even within those definitions, they can mean different things.
Within carbon emission calculations, there are three scopes, each a different level of difficulty (and therefore cost) for a company to tackle.
Scope 1 is emissions directly produced by the company’s assets (cars, factories, whatever). Scope 2 is the emissions produced through energy generation.
Scope 3 is the big one – that’s the emissions through an organisation’s supply chain. Not by stuff controlled by the company, but directly impacted by the organisation’s actions. And this is the one often missing in these pledges as it’s much harder to calculate.
It’s also largely the bulk of any organisation’s footprint so comes with the greatest expense. Often these pledges do not take into consideration scope 3 emissions at all.
To make a real difference, businesses also need to audit their carbon production annually and come up with a plan to reduce it.
Depending on the sector, that can mean all kinds of acts big and small – switching to renewable energy or electric vehicles, opting for sea freight over carbon-intensive air freight or eliminating the use of certain materials with a hefty carbon footprint.
Offsetting is also far too easily deployed to distract from the very real environmental harm caused by large businesses, particularly in industries like oil and gas, fashion and beauty.
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After all, what use is a vague promise of net-zero in almost thirty years’ time when the company plans to produce and sell fossil fuels at the exact same rate it does now?
How do tree-planting programmes tackle the issues of substandard wages and living conditions through fashion and beauty supply chains?
Can a climate positive brand really claim to be environmentally conscious when their product range is heavy in palm oil, an ingredient strongly associated with deforestation and habitat loss?
Businesses must be willing to do the work of remedying all the environmental and social issues caused by their operations, not just paying someone in another country to offset some arbitrary carbon figure.
And certainly not by just purchasing trees to offset inefficient, carbon intensive practices that do far more harm in the long run.
Admittedly, it would be enormously difficult for a decades-old, billion-dollar company to undo years of profit-driven operations and company culture in the pursuit of planet-friendly policy.
Yet it must be done. Trees are wonderful, but we can’t allow them to become a magic sustainability shield for big businesses to hide the real damage behind.
Brianne West is an environmentalist, scientist and founder of New Zealand-based global regenerative beauty and lifestyle brand Ethique.
