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June 18, 2008, 02:40 PM ET
Report Offers Advice for Those Claiming Climate Neutrality
A new report from Clean Air-Cool Planet examines the meaning of the term “climate neutral” and examines some companies that are making that claim. The basic points of the report could be applied to any college striving for climate neutrality or claiming to already be climate neutral.
“We heard more and more companies claiming neutrality, but we also saw that no one was looking at what such a claim really meant,” Adam Markham, chief executive officer of Clean Air–Cool Planet, said in an announcement about the report. “We wanted to see what was behind these claims and offer guidance to others.”
The report is “intended to serve as a guide both to companies that have used—or are considering using—the language of neutrality and to stakeholders that are trying to evaluate whether a particular claim is justified or not,” according to the report’s executive summary.
One of the more difficult aspects of measuring neutrality is determining where the responsibility of a particular institution ends, the report notes. Should an institution count employee travel or emissions caused by landfilled waste?
The report examines the claims and strategies of companies like Interface, Timberland, Pearson’s Shaklee’s, Fiji Water, and so on. Marks & Spencer, a British clothes retailer, is given praise for the way it outlines exactly how the company will reduce emissions and reach neutrality goals. Fiji Water, while providing some clear information about its climate-neutrality goals and progress, is a confounding case for the researchers. “Is the entire idea of shipping bottled water around the world so inherently unsustainable to make its claim meaningless?” the report says. “Fiji Water perhaps represents an example of a claim that meets the letter, but not the spirit, of neutrality.” (Our recent guest blogger, Xarissa Holdaway, had similar ambivalence about Arizona State University, which has touted its many sustainability goals, yet is committed to growth in a difficult-to-sustain part of the American Southwest.)
The report had various recommendations for institutions that want to pursue climate neutrality claims—among them, “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”; “be completely transparent”; and “treat neutrality as a long-term commitment—and an ongoing dynamic challenge.”
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