If you’re looking for the most used buzzwords used by brands over the past few years, you’ll likely find ‘carbon neutral’ and ‘decarbonisation’ high on the list. And fair enough: to reach the 2050 net zero target needed to keep global warming below 1.5C, we need to reduce carbon emissions in our atmosphere, fast (like, yesterday). However, the current progress is far too slow with countries setting carbon reduction plans that aren’t nearly ambitious enough (Climate Action Tracker currently ranks Australia’s progress as ‘insufficient’).
If you’re reading this, you’re probably conscious of your own carbon footprint and how to reduce it: bike to work, watch your energy consumption, don’t fly. You know the drill.
But what would our planet look like if we woke up tomorrow to a world that reached net zero? In this fever dream, could we take a collective sigh and never think about the environment again? Not quite.
The importance and pitfalls of carbon offsets
The current concept of carbon neutrality largely relies on carbon offsets. The biggest side product of decarbonisation is the carbon emissions trading market. A carbon offset refers to businesses and governments compensating for their emissions by investing in projects that reduce, avoid, or remove emissions elsewhere. These actions then result in carbon credits. Offsets, while sometimes necessary, attract lots of warranted scepticism.
Carbon offsets can be a powerful tool in decarbonisation to help offset emissions that can’t be avoided. However, offsets are often used as a justification to produce emissions in the first place. With consumers becoming increasingly interested in the environmental effects of their purchase decisions, offsetting also works as a marketing trick — even if businesses aren’t actually coming up with less harmful ways to operate.
The data behind carbon offsetting can also make for grim reading. A 2023 Guardian investigation into the world’s leading carbon standard organisation Verra found that over 90% of rainforest carbon offsets were worthless. Offsets can also veer close to greenwashing when used as a quick fix to reach climate targets or appear as environmentally friendly without the efforts to be, well, environmentally friendly.
Businesses using carbon offsets in their climate strategy should be careful to choose relevant and local projects to contribute to and determine whether they’ve taken all other possible reduction methods. Over-reliance on offsets means maintaining a dangerous status quo at the planet’s expense.
The benefits and limits of decarbonisation
Hyperfocusing on carbon emissions alone sets aside many other pressing environmental issues affecting the liveability of our planet that don’t often attract the same headlines or make it to corporate agendas as easily as carbon targets.
Biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, and water and food scarcity are just some of the issues we urgently need to turn our attention to build a truly sustainable future. These challenges all tie into carbon reduction, but might have different priorities. For example, planting new forests helps store carbon, but restoring old native forests has the same effect on carbon while also promoting biodiversity and species diversity.
Looking beyond sustainability and towards regeneration
To adopt a more holistic approach to sustainability, we can’t only look at what we’re reducing, but also what we’re adding. This means moving away from a mindset of mere damage control to considering how we can make systemic changes into the ways we operate.
Businesses can do this by considering the five capitals model of doing business: building sustainability and wealth through natural, human, social, manufactured, and financial capital. This helps with the regeneration of our environment: the practice of sustaining and restoring natural resources to improve the health of our planet.
It can feel challenging to consider absolutely everything when it comes to sustainability, but the interconnectedness of environmental challenges means improvements in one issue often help the other. Water is a great example of this. The warming climate has disrupted the water cycle around the world, affecting where, when, and how much it rains. Soil is the second largest carbon storage in the world, but soils are crumbling with increasing droughts. On the flip side, floods that destroy crops or wash fertilisers into the ocean contribute to food scarcity and pollution.
Taking a more wide angle view of ecosystems — natural and man made alike — helps us draw the links between different issues and identify where we can improve and make a difference.
The case for circular economies
So, what’s the answer? Circular economies offer us an alternative on how we produce, consume, and dispose of goods. Unlike the traditional linear economy, with a ‘take, make, and dispose’ model, a circular economy aims to keep products, materials, and resources in use for as long as possible. This involves designing for durability, reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling, and offers benefits for both the planet and people.
There are many examples of brands contributing to circular economies in the way they do business. Businesses across industries from technology to clothing are increasingly offering take and buy back programs to incentivise customers to return their used products in exchange for a voucher or payment. There are also many brands, like Zero Co or Modibodi, who are taking what would traditionally be single use products and instead creating ‘forever’ versions to cut down on both resources and waste.
Businesses using waste as a resource are also using a circular business model. Local social enterprise Reground collects cafe waste like coffee grounds and redistributes it to local communities to use in gardens and soils.
Brands embracing circular economies can be more efficient than those who don’t, benefiting from low raw materials costs and shorter production times. Circular products also have generally longer life cycles, fostering brand loyalty and trust.
Forward-looking businesses are embracing circular economy principles: a 2023 Bain & Company survey found that executives expect the share of revenue from circular products and services to grow 30% from 2021 levels.
Progressing towards a more resilient future
In the progress towards decarbonisation, it’s crucial we don’t get tunnel vision and forget about other environmental challenges facing our planet. Advocating for a more holistic view on sustainability will be beneficial for both decarbonisation efforts and addressing pressing challenges like protecting our biodiversity and food and water resources.
Inventing ways to do more good gives us hope for a future of regeneration and resilience, where businesses can not just manage their negative impact but contribute to a positive one by rethinking production and waste processes.
All of this requires collective action, and while the business and environmental case for circular economies is strong, brands should lead by example and inspire others to build more sustainable business models.
If we want to halt the effects of climate change, we must look beyond carbon alone and invent systemically better ways to meet our needs. After all, we want a truly resilient, resourceful, and flourishing planet to pass onto the next generation.
Want to grow your positive impact and find the best way to tell the world about it? Get in touch with Young Folks to see how we can help.
Sources:
United Nations, “Net Zero Coalition”, https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition accessed on July 1, 2024.
United Nations, “Causes and effects of climate change”, https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change#:~:text=Fossil%20fuels%20–%20coal%2C%20oil%20and,they%20trap%20the%20sun’s%20heat. Accessed on July 1, 2024.
European Commission, “Soil: the hidden part of the climate cycle”, https://climate.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2016-11/soil_and_climate_en.pdf accessed on July 1, 2024.
Bain & Company, “The Future is Circular: How Companies Can Prepare to Grow in a Changing World”, https://www.bain.com/insights/the-future-is-circular-how-companies-can-prepare-to-grow-in-a-changed-world-ceo-sustainability-guide-2023/ accessed on July 2, 2024.
The Guardian, “Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest certifier are worthless, analysis shows”, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe accessed on July 1, 2024.
