For the typical client, it may be tough to assess which corporations are taking significant steps to fight climate change, mentioned Frederic Hans, a climate coverage analyst on the NewClimate Institute, an impartial, Germany-based group that promotes measures to sluggish Earth’s warming. The group this 12 months analyzed the climate plans of 25 huge corporations and discovered lots of them overestimated the extent to which their actions would scale back carbon emissions.
“In many cases, the consumer might really be in a difficult situation to identify and differentiate which companies are the front-runners on climate action and which are not,” Hans mentioned.
The Washington Post spoke with a variety of environmental consultants and collected their greatest recommendations on how to strategy corporate climate claims with a essential eye. With every tip under, we highlighted one firm’s environmental claims and confirmed the way it could be overstating the actual actions it has taken to mitigate climate change.
Tip #1: Net-zero pledges don’t inform the total story.
Many corporations now make “net-zero” pledges, commitments to cut back a few of their carbon emissions and steadiness the remaining emissions by buying “offsets” that take away carbon from the ambiance. But critics say these pledges could be incomplete, as a result of they usually don’t account for the total scope of emissions generated within the creation and consumption of their merchandise.
Last 12 months, Travelers made an Earth Day Pledge to turn out to be carbon impartial by 2030, a goal the insurance coverage firm mentioned in a news launch was aligned with the Paris climate settlement aim of limiting international temperature enhance to 1.5 levels Celsius over preindustrial ranges. Travelers mentioned the aim included emissions generated instantly by its operations and not directly by vitality it purchases. The pledge excluded all emissions generated by corporations through which Travelers invests or gives insurance coverage insurance policies.
This broader class of buyer and provider emissions, often called Scope 3, makes up the most important portion of emissions for many corporations however can also be the carbon footprint that’s most tough for companies to measure and instantly affect. For these causes, governments and standards-setting teams have disagreed over whether or not corporations needs to be required to embrace these emissions in net-zero pledges.
Travelers has mentioned it doesn’t report Scope 3 emissions as a result of the info is difficult to monitor. But greater than 20 main insurers who’re a part of the United Nations’ Net-Zero Insurance Alliance have begun monitoring and reporting Scope 3 emissions and dedicated to together with them of their pledges to attain carbon neutrality by 2050.
Two shareholder teams, Green Century Capital Management and As You Sow, are pushing Travelers to measure and report emissions generated by its prospects and investments. Without understanding this broader carbon footprint, the teams say, Travelers can’t know the way it’s uncovered to the possible monetary dangers of accelerating climate catastrophes.
Insure Our Future, a coalition of climate teams, has additionally urged Travelers to cease underwriting environmentally damaging fossil gas initiatives, saying the corporate is enabling an business that contributes to climate change. Travelers this 12 months mentioned it could cease investing in or offering insurance coverage for brand spanking new coal energy plant and tar sands initiatives. But it continues to spend money on and underwrite oil and gasoline initiatives.
“As society’s risk managers, insurers have an obligation to help avoid climate breakdown–and the power to help drive the transition to clean energy,” Insure Our Future mentioned in a news launch final month.
A Travelers spokesman declined to remark.
Tip #2: Carbon is just not easy to offset.
A declare of “carbon neutral” normally means a enterprise has offset its emissions by investing in initiatives that cut back environmental hurt in different methods. These trade-offs are sometimes not so simple as corporations make them out to be, as a result of the true advantage of carbon offset initiatives could be tough to measure.
On Earth Day final 12 months, Google started utilizing its homepage to promote a declare that the corporate has been “carbon neutral since 2007.” The Alphabet-owned firm mentioned it achieved this aim by shopping for credit from “highly-quality” carbon offset suppliers. A current evaluation of those initiatives by the NewClimate Institute discovered lots of Google’s offset credit to have “highly questionable environmental integrity,” as a result of a few of them might need occurred with out Google’s involvement.
In one mission, Google pays a municipal authority in Upstate New York to convert the methane gasoline from a landfill into usable electrical energy. Because the methane given off by decomposing waste is stronger than carbon dioxide, it’s a vital driver of climate change and subsequently a significant goal of world efforts to curb emissions.
Google has mentioned its mission with the Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Authority eradicated half one million metric tons of carbon dioxide equal in its first seven years. That’s roughly the identical carbon footprint as Google’s whole enterprise over a two-week interval, primarily based on information within the firm’s most up-to-date environmental report.
But as with many offset initiatives, it’s laborious to inform whether or not the quantity of emissions being lowered would actually equal the emissions they’re supposed to exchange. It’s attainable that an outdoor funding within the Oneida-Herkimer mission was the one method emissions from the landfill would have been averted.
But it’s additionally attainable these emissions might have been lowered with out that assist, in accordance to the NewClimate Institute.
Landfill operators have rising incentives to seize methane and convert it to electrical energy themselves. In some locations, these efforts have resulted in a worthwhile new enterprise that may generate income for landfill homeowners and communities. Increasingly, state and federal legal guidelines additionally require landfills to set up this know-how.
Google has acknowledged the issue of understanding conclusively that offset initiatives lead to carbon reductions that wouldn’t have in any other case occurred. In 2011, a 12 months after Google first funded the Oneida-Herkimer landfill, the corporate mentioned in a white paper that with methane offset packages, “it’s possible that the revenue from the gas or electricity would have been enough to make the project financially attractive.”
Methane conversion initiatives just like the one in Upstate New York characterize the vast majority of over 40 carbon offsets from which Google has purchased credit to meet its commonplace of “carbon neutral,” the NewClimate Institute discovered. Google has mentioned it carefully scrutinizes offset initiatives to guarantee they cut back emissions that may not be lowered one other method.
“We believe the Oneida landfill to be ‘additional’ reduced emissions because the Authority did not have any incentives to install the gas destruction project other than the offsets revenue,” a Google spokeswoman mentioned in an announcement. “In other words, this project would not have happened had it not been for the offsets.”
A consultant from the Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Authority didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Separately, Google says it plans to supply the entire electrical energy used to energy its corporate campuses and information facilities with renewable vitality sources by 2030. That declare doesn’t contain using any carbon offsets.
Tip #3: Read the advantageous print.
Companies have a tendency to be extraordinarily cautious in how they phrase their commitments, and generally the advantageous print particulars can dilute the substance of an environmental aim that sounds formidable.
As a part of its dedication to the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests, McDonald’s pledged to “eliminate deforestation in supply chains” for its beef, rooster, palm oil, espresso and fiber-based packaging merchandise by 2020. After that deadline handed, the quick meals chain mentioned it had practically accomplished a aim that sounded related however was worded barely otherwise: most of those merchandise “support deforestation-free supply chains.”
On its web site, McDonald’s acknowledges that the 2 phrases have completely different meanings. Originally, McDonald’s mentioned it could get rid of all deforestation from its provide chain. Now, McDonald’s says it’s extra cautious about sourcing commodities from components of the world with the next threat of deforestation. In the footnotes, the corporate lists a number of exemptions to its deforestation aim, together with beef used as a flavoring in sauces, soy used as an ingredient in meals merchandise, espresso extracts utilized in drinks similar to frappés, and fiber in wooden stirrers, cutlery, tray liners and straws.
In an emailed assertion, a McDonald’s spokeswoman mentioned the corporate “is committed to a longstanding journey to eliminate deforestation from its global supply chain”
Cargill, one in all McDonald’s suppliers, is a number one driver of deforestation, in accordance to Glenn Hurowitz, whose nonprofit, Mighty Earth, has led calls for a moratorium on these suppliers. The agriculture big buys items from farmers who destroy native vegetation in Brazil and elsewhere, Hurowitz mentioned.
McDonald’s claims “are pretty much complete baloney,” he mentioned. “If McDonald’s actually wants to stop deforestation, they simply need to stop sourcing from the companies that are driving it.”
On its web site, McDonald’s says it labored with suppliers together with Cargill on deforestation measures, similar to estimating the worldwide footprint of its soy enterprise. McDonald’s has not publicly responded to calls to finish its enterprise with Cargill, and a spokeswoman declined to touch upon the difficulty.
A Cargill spokesman mentioned the corporate helps efforts to finish deforestation and has centered these efforts on South America, which it calls the highest-priority area for soy sustainability. “We are committed to eliminating deforestation from our supply chains in the shortest time possible and are accelerating our efforts,” the spokesman mentioned.
Tip #4: Focus on father or mother corporations, not particular person merchandise and manufacturers.
Some corporate entrepreneurs try to place lots of their merchandise and manufacturers as inexperienced. But in some circumstances, these claims are outliers when thought of extra broadly with the actions of their father or mother firm.
On Earth Day final 12 months, KitKat pledged to turn out to be carbon impartial by 2025, by means of a mixture of emission reductions and investing in “high quality offsetting.” At the identical time, KitKat’s father or mother firm, Nestlé, has laid out a way more conservative timeline for chopping emissions in half by 2030 and eliminating carbon emissions by 2050.
Because particular person merchandise normally share a lot of the identical personnel and operations as their father or mother corporations, it’s unlikely that one product can be way more formidable on climate objectives than its father or mother, mentioned Hans of the NewClimate Institute. Rather than symbols of systemic progress, such merchandise are normally simply getting extra consideration from corporate entrepreneurs who need to place them as inexperienced, he mentioned.
In an interview, Benjamin Ware, Nestlé’s head of climate supply and sustainable sourcing, mentioned the corporate’s resolution to announce the KitKat aim was the results of a market demand for chocolate bars which have been created sustainably. “For certain brands, there is a consumer appetite for carbon neutral claims,” he mentioned. “We want to remain relevant in the marketplace.”
The KitKat aim is per the broader Nestlé aim, Ware mentioned, as a result of each plan to cut back absolute emissions 20 % by 2025 and get rid of them by 2050. The “carbon neutral” aim for KitKat depends on carbon offsets, not like the broader Nestlé aim, which doesn’t, he mentioned.
Tip #5: Certifications could have little which means.
Consumers ought to strategy inexperienced product labels with skepticism. Some labels that recommend a product meets strict environmental standards could also be purely an invention of the corporate’s personal advertising division, mentioned A. Wren Montgomery, an assistant professor of sustainability on the University of Western Ontario.
“A lot of consumers are looking for labels, thinking they want it certified,” Montgomery mentioned. “So companies are saying, ‘Well, I’ll just make up a certification.’ ”
A couple of years in the past, paint maker Benjamin Moore marketed a few of its merchandise with a Green Promise label, which the corporate made itself, together with claims that the paint has zero chemical emissions and is “green without compromise.” The Federal Trade Commission sued Benjamin Moore in 2017, arguing it was making unfaithful claims about its Natura line of paint and deceiving prospects into believing the merchandise had been licensed by an impartial group.
After the FTC ordered Benjamin Moore to be extra clear with prospects, the corporate added a warning to make clear that its paints “emit chemicals during the painting process and while drying,” in accordance to the FTC order. It altered the label to embrace the phrases “Benjamin Moore’s Green Promise.” It stopped promoting Natura paint final 12 months.
Kelly Sinatra, a spokeswoman for Benjamin Moore, mentioned in an e mail that a few of this information is inaccurate, with out offering particulars. She didn’t reply to requests for clarification.