Predominantly, Not Exclusively, Focused on GHG Emissions
When selecting products to buy and companies to support, consumers face a dizzying array of impact-related claims.
At The Carbon Platform we have chosen to focus predominantly, but not exclusively, on products that are designed, manufactured and distributed with the goal of reducing atmospheric levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to those of “industry average” goods. Here’s why.
I. A Lens Through Which to View Many Issues
We see the discussion around climate as underpinning progress on a lot of other important topics. This is admittedly a bold claim to make. But, at its heart, addressing climate means addressing myriad of un-transparent processes, and in so doing, highlighting what economists call “negative externalities”.
Negative externalities occur when companies act in ways that damage the physical or social environment in which they operate, but bear no cost for their actions. The process of understanding companies’ GHG emissions necessarily represents a first step in apportioning responsibility to address these emissions, and at the same time inevitably casts into sharp relief many of the attendant ethical challenges that mission-focused companies seek to address.
It is our core conviction that a focus on GHG emissions – in an authentic, quantified fashion – therefore becomes the starting point for other important conversations. And so that is where we want to focus most of our efforts.
II. It’s Hard, It’s Unsolved
In high school we learn that pressure equals force divided by area. If you want to increase the pressure on something, add more force and decrease the area on which that force is applied.
This truism applies equally to climate change: if we want to apply real pressure to the topic, we need to gather our forces and concentrate on key areas.
Such an approach is required now more than ever. Fundamental questions regarding how to address climate change are unanswered. For example, decades after the alarm was sounded, and more than 30 years since the landmark UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was passed in 1992, we still have no standard way as individuals to understand how our behaviors quantitatively contribute to GHG emissions. That is, there are no standard labels that report on the GHG emissions associated with products we buy. To make this point again: how can it be that something judged to have such negative risks to humanity comes with no warning labels?
At The Carbon Platform, we are convinced that it is critical to redouble efforts to address climate change and to address some of the more pressing questions that have profoundly unsatisfying answers. That is why we put the majority of our force on clarifying GHG emissions and thence providing customers access to authentically low-carbon products.
III. It’s Urgent
At the heart of the discussion on climate change is the idea that the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere influences global temperature: the higher the concentration, the warmer the temperature (and, including possible second-order effects, “the hotter the planet gets, the hotter the planet will get”).
The fundamental question, then, is how much CO2 (or equivalent) can be emitted
into the atmosphere before global warming is projected to surpass levels that cause excess stress to ecosystems and communities?
The answer provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (see, for example, here), is that given the technologies that exist today, we need to cut global GHG emissions by ~50% within the next decade. To do this, we need to start today. Not tomorrow. Not 2030. Not 2040. “Net Zero by 2050” is roughly equivalent to net zero by never. That is why we try to identify companies and products that are taking radical steps towards decarbonization today.
Summary
The core idea of The Carbon Platform is to provide low-carbon products for everyday living: to identify products that individuals need and will buy anyway, and to find and sell equivalent (or better) products that have validated, less-than-industry average GHG emissions. We know that finding such products is hard, but we are convinced that over time we will be able to offer a broader selection of products with more precisely defined (and lower) GHG footprints. Making that commitment requires real focus. Rest assured, all things being equal, we will not hesitate to showcase additional product attributes that minimize negative externalities. But at the end of the day, we will focus predominantly on GHG emissions.
