Getting Brands to Commit to ‘Net Zero’ Carbon Emissions

Climate news seems to get bleaker by the day. From a Texas-sized island of plastic swirling in the Pacific Ocean to mountains of discarded clothing washing up on the shores of Ghana, consumers are paying attention. And they're demanding action and accountability from brands. In response, brands are experimenting with new materials, processes and business models. But while some are genuinely pursuing strategies to reduce industrialization’s impact on the planet, others are scraping by and doing the bare minimum just to look like they care. For consumers, that's where things get fuzzy. What should sustainably minded consumers trust and look for in clothing brands, food companies and even wines? And how can advertisers communicate a genuine commitment to the climate? Climate Neutral is one of many organizations trying to answer that question. Through third-party verification, the group aims to make it easier for consumers to find out how products affect the environment. In an age of increased consumer skepticism around marketing campaigns that claim to be good for the planet and a heightened sensitivity to greenwashing, vetted third-party verifications can lend credibility. Building an eco label with integrity The little sun-shaped Climate Neutral Certified logo's goal is similar to the hundreds of other eco labels: Communicate a commitment to the environment. Its presence on a package indicates that brands like outdoor gear company Kammok, apparel brand Reformation and Lubanzi Wines have analyzed and optimized their operations to minimize ecological despoliation. This includes implementing changes like minimizing plastic packaging, swapping in more recycled materials, limiting air freight or opting for more sustainable farming practices. For any carbon emissions they can’t eliminate, such as unavoidable business components like shipping or manufacturing, the brands buy enough carbon offsets to “neutralize” them. Those offsets, peddled by Carbon Neutral itself or other approved vendors, fund forest and grasslands conservation, small-scale renewable energy or energy-efficient cookstoves for impoverished communities, among other things. So far, certified brands have offset 785,993 tons of carbon emissions and found more than 700 ways to decrease emissions through their work with the nonprofit. Climate Neutral began in 2019. “There’s a tremendous gap between what consumers know is the problem and what consumers feel is the solution,” CEO Austin Whitman told Adweek. That’s a big part of why he started nonprofit Climate Neutral in 2019. Despite the proliferation of eco labels, Whitman said, very few go as far as requiring companies to “compensate for and mitigate carbon emissions from their operations.” Climate Neutral does more than simply analyze data for companies, though. It doubles as a support system for brands unsure of how to go about measuring, limiting and mitigating the climate impact of their operations. “Ideally, we would love to just be the independent third party that's grading everybody's homework—but nobody's doing their homework,” Whitman said. Rather than simply assessing which brands are doing a good job at implementing sustainable practices, Climate Neutral serves as a tutor or consulting service to ensure companies are doing everything possible to minimize climate impact. Over time, the goal is to continually shrink emissions numbers through innovation or operational changes and to help consumers tell which brands are making meaningful efforts when it comes to climate impact. "We measure our impact in the number of tons of carbon that are measured, compensated and reduced," Whitman said. "That's a real number." But there are also secondary outcomes of that work, he explained, such as "teaching people what causes carbon emissions and teaching consumers that there's a connection between carbon emissions and the things that they buy every single day." While harder to measure, that's also a meaningful result of the nonprofit's work. Getting certified It can take three to four months for larger brands to go through the certification process with Climate Neutral, though it can be as quick as an hour or two for smaller organizations. Lubanzi Wines, a winemaking company that’s built equitable practices into the core of its business, was in the first cohort of brands that went through Climate Neutral’s certification process. “We were drawn to Climate Neutral because we felt like they were—more so than some of the other [eco labels] we found—a very well run, solid, transparent organization that could help us both measure offset and reduce the carbon footprint,” Charlie Brain, co-founder of Lubanzi Wines, told Adweek. Climate Neutral’s standards are based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which organizes emissions into three different categories. The first includes direct emissions from a company’s own facilities and vehicles; the second includes indirect emissions through energy use at owned facilities; and the third covers supply chain emissions. For big consumer-packaged goods companies, for example, the third scope can account for more than 90% of overall emissions, Whitman said. The Cost of Carbon Neutrality How much each brand pays to offset unavoidable carbon emissions varies greatly by industry and the size of its operations. Kammok spent $17,000 on offsets last year and plans to cut air freight emissions in half by 2022.Lubanzi Wines spent around $3,400 on offsets and has plans to reduce plastic in its packaging. Reformation, a clothing brand with an estimated $150 million in annual revenue, paid $159,000 to offset 28,745 tons of carbon emissions. Over the next year, it's looking to replace conventional silk and cashmere fibers with lower-impact alternatives. “What I found to be very helpful is a framework of how to do analysis of carbon footprint in areas that aren't as obvious,” Greg McEvilly, CEO of Kammok, told Adweek. “Some of that can be more arduous to dig into as a small company.” After a brand is certified, a summary of actions taken to reduce impact and the offsets purchased to counteract what’s leftover is posted to Climate Neutral’s website for anyone to check. That transparency of information is crucial but would be best connected to the label itself via a QR code or similar link for easy consumer access, suggested CB Bhattacharya, Zoffer chair of sustainability and ethics at the University of Pittsburgh. Otherwise, it's unlikely consumers will understand the meaning of the Climate Neutral Certified logo. Building trust into the label Two years in, the roster of more than 300 brands that have successfully gone through the nonprofit’s certification process is stacked with those that have been early adopters of other sustainability-focused initiatives. Outdoor gear brands like REI, Cotopaxi and Kammok have all been certified, as well as eco-conscious fashion brands like Allbirds and Reformation. While experts warn against initiatives that only preach to those already committed to sustainability, Whitman said getting well-known and trusted brands certified helps build credibility in the initiative's early stages. Eco labels provide assurance in a brand’s devotion to sustainability. That’s more of an “early adopter phenomenon” than a long-term strategy for building and maintaining consumer trust in the label, though. As more consumers become aware of Climate Neutral, Whitman said it will continue to focus on effectively communicating its process. “One of the elements of trust is just comprehension," Whitman said. To build that trust, the nonprofit is prioritizing consumer education around the role and meaning of eco labels through its website. "To the extent that we can tell a story that people understand, we are going to be much more trusted and trustworthy.” Where to draw the line? While many different types of businesses have approached Climate Neutral interested in certification, not every industry is eligible for the nonprofit’s stamp of approval. “We are specifically not trying to certify” brands that operate within “heavily extractive industries,” Whitman said. For example, it's not looking to work with fossil fuel companies, cement companies or—rather specifically—a New Brunswick-based brand that peddles ice cubes cut from glaciers for use in high-end cocktails, he noted. There are some industries that need to streamline or fix their operations to lessen their impact, while other industries need to be completely remade. There's no way for fossil fuel companies to outweigh the harm they're doing to the planet with carbon offsets if they're still profiting from the extraction of oil, gas and coal. Emissions from heavily extractive and fossil fuel industries "need to be addressed at the source by investing in new zero-carbon ways of producing those primary inputs such as electricity and cement," Whitman explained. "Whereas we see certification of consumer brands as a good way to accelerate change, we believe certification of fossil fuel companies would delay change." Beware overemphasizing carbon offsets An internationally standardized eco label is desperately needed in this space, according to Bhattacharya. But he conceded he’d settle for a nationally recognized identifier that rewards ecologically sound industrial processes. Still, Climate Neutral stands out in a field of more than 400 privately held eco labels, said Melissa Breyer, editorial director at climate-focused publication Treehugger. “Not only is it issued by a nonprofit, but it requires companies to count their carbon emissions annually, purchase offsets for their entire carbon footprint and commit to reducing emissions and documenting it all,” Breyer said. If it’s able to continue building clout within industries while maintaining a rigorous certification process, it could become the much-needed standard. “Before Climate Neutral, there was no standard or certification for the fashion industry at large,” Kathleen Talbot, chief sustainability officer and vp of operations at Reformation, told Adweek. “It was also easy to rely on offsetting alone and not curb the actual growth of your footprint,” she said. Relying too heavily on offsets is a pitfall that many brands catering to sustainability-minded consumers fall into, Bhattacharya said. “It's the easiest way out, just putting 15 cents toward a tree or whatever and evading the issue of how much you're emitting,” he explained. Instead, the main focus needs to be on emissions reduction. And according to Whitman, that's squarely where the focus of Climate Neutral lies.

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Getting Brands to Commit to Net-Zero Carbon Emissions

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