What does it mean to claim that your company is ‘carbon neutral’? A new report published today investigates some of the claims that have been made so far, and makes recommendations for organisations planning to become truly carbon neutral.
Getting to Zero: Defining Corporate Carbon Neutrality is the first comprehensive study of the term ‘carbon neutrality’ and it’s application by business. The report is published by the UK sustainable development charity, Forum for the Future and the US non-profit, Clean Air –Cool Planet.
The current situation
Overall, the report applauds the attempts of growing numbers of companies to strive for carbon neutrality. But it reveals that the range of emissions covered and the strategies used to achieve neutrality vary widely - posing serious challenges to the value of the term.
“We heard more and more companies claiming neutrality, but we also saw that no one was looking at what such a claim really meant”, explains Adam Markham, CEO of Clean Air – Cool Planet.
The report’s authors analysed over 25 companies claiming to be ‘carbon neutral’. Their findings were more varied than they had expected, explains Iain Watt, an author of the report:
“Companies are defining their carbon footprints in a variety of ways, embracing wildly different carbon reduction strategies and are rarely providing sufficient information to enable consumers to assess their claims. This needs to be addressed.”
Examples of companies doing well include Interface and Ben & Jerry’s Europe. Companies whose efforts raise flags include Yakima and Google, neither of which even disclose their total emissions, and Shaklee, which asserts that it has ‘net zero impact on the environment.’
Recommendations for the future
As well as analysing current practices, the report sets out eight best practice guidelines for companies that have made, or are considering making, a claim of neutrality. The authors hope these will also be of value to stakeholders trying to evaluate whether a particular claim is justified or not. The eight guidelines are:
1. Embrace a stretching ‘boundary’
2. Demonstrate a broad understanding of your entire carbon footprint prior to making any claim of neutrality – and ensure that your claim covers a relatively significant set of emissions.
3. Exhibit caution in making blanket corporate-wide claims of neutrality
4. Consider whether a claim of neutrality will resonate with your stakeholders.
5. Use the carbon management hierarchy to inform your neutralisation strategy.
6. Be completely transparent.
7. Exhibit and sustain broad leadership on climate change.
8. Treat neutrality as a long-term commitment – and an ongoing dynamic challenge.
Commenting on the future for carbon neutrality, Watt said:
“A claim of neutrality is essentially a claim of leadership, and achieving neutrality is not, therefore, a simple check-box exercise. Companies need to embrace the spirit of the claim and actually reduce their carbon footprint, as well as simply offsetting their emissions.”
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The full report can be downloaded here
Interviews are available on request. For more information please contact:
Alex Johnson, Forum for the Future
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7324 3624, (0)7765 253 231,
Email: a.johnson@forumforthefuture.org.uk
About Clean Air – Cool Planet
Clean Air-Cool Planet is the leading science-based, non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated solely to finding and promoting solutions to global warming. Through our Climate Policy Center we develop and promote economically efficient and innovative climate policies. CA-CP provides hands-on assistance to companies, campuses, communities and science centers to help them reduce their carbon emissions while celebrating commitment, innovation and success in practical climate solutions that demonstrate the economic opportunities and environmental benefits of action on climate change. Find out more at www.coolplant.org.
About Forum for the Future
Forum for the Future - the sustainable development charity - works in partnership with leading organisations in business and the public sector. Our vision is of business and communities thriving in a future that is environmentally sustainable and socially just. We believe that a sustainable future can be achieved, that it is the only way business and communities will prosper, but that we need bold action now to make it happen. We play our part by inspiring and challenging organisations with positive visions of a sustainable future; finding innovative, practical ways to help realise those visions; training leaders to bring about change; and sharing success through our communications. Find out more at www.forumforthefuture.org.uk
Comments
But is Neutrality a useful strategy?
Intersting report but disappointed that there is little discussion about whether carbon neutrality is a good strategy - what are these companies trying to achieve and why?
In my mind a neutrality policy only has value as a marketing tool; investigating the monetary value of a neutrality cliam would have been an intersting exercise. My feeling is that customers attach little value to these claims, particularly as they proliferate
Far better for organisations to focus their efforts on what they can do internally and with their stakholders and forget the silly concept of neutrality. Business activity produces emissions, however efficiently it is conducted, so neutrality strategies inevitably lead to buying offsets, which are a stupendously inefficient allocation of capital for a business.
These funds would be far more effectively spent on enabling genuine reductions among stakeholders, be they customers or employees, an exercise that would yield real reducitons and real reputational gains. If the company wants to unitise these reductions as Stakeholder Emissions Reductions (SERs) and report them / count them as offsets then go for it but stop spending good money on projects which provide little benefit.
Simon