NetZero carbon emissions imply that action in one place offsets inaction in another and that this is acceptable. As worthy as some carbon emission offsetting activities are, they ‘permit’ continued carbon emission, which means that the emitters continue to fail to address, or address more slowly, their RealZero issues.
Carbon emission offsets are pretty much anything that you can do in one place, which balances out the emissions that you continue to make in another. If you search the interweb, examples include reforestation, providing clean water, more efficient cooking stoves and even building renewable electricity plants in other parts of the world.
We can all agree that many of these offsets, in any part of the world, are a good thing. But, for a company in another part of the world to claim their offset activity elsewhere means that it is OK for them to continue to pump carbon into the atmosphere, while claiming Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) kudos with their investors, their staff, their supply chain and their consumers, is a greenwashing hoax.
Companies could, and should, continue to deliver all their useful carbon ‘offsetting’ or reduction and soaking-up activity, without claiming it as offsetting, while addressing the real crisis that is the source of their continued emissions.
It is RealZero, not NetZero, that is our target.
RealZero means no carbon emissions. It must be our target if we are to stop and even reverse the continuing build-up of carbon in the world’s atmosphere, the most significant contributor to the climate change which threatens our way of life and even existence.
One route to RealZero today is solar PV on your commercial roofs to reduce the whole-life carbon of buildings. There are 250,000ha of south facing commercial roofs in the UK…. and only 5% have solar PV on them! Roof mounted solar PV provides an immediate and on-going reduction in CO2 emissions; it delivers on-site green energy security, a real and direct contribution to your ESG and to the Government’s carbon emissions reduction targets; an improvement to your buildings’ EPC; and an uplift in their capital value. A fully funded solar PV roof means that all these benefits can be acquired free of capital and operational expenditure and without requiring management time along with cheaper electricity than you are paying for electricity now with a fixed inflation rate, less than then Energy Price Index.
Start your RealZero journey today and let us help you get to Footprint Zero.