Breaking Down the Jargon: Carbon
Cutting carbon emissions is a critical step in building sustainability in business. Every climate-conscious business today has set goals to reduce emissions and become carbon-neutral or carbon-free by 2030- or 50-something.
But somewhere in the middle of all the terminology, many businesses have a way of appearing committed to climate action without taking meaningful action (read: Greenwashing: How We Quietly Divert From the Path to Sustainability). Exxon Mobil’s lost board seats has shown that even Big Oil is getting a timeout for not fully committing to climate issues. (Though, let’s not get carried away and call a corporate shift at a major oil company a big win for the climate.) So, this may be a good time to break down some of the jargon that we may be hearing on press releases.
Carbon Emissions
In general, Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions are the production and release of harmful gases into the atmosphere, which include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases. The release of such gases into the atmosphere create a greenhouse effect that results in the rise of global temperatures, i.e. Global Warming.
Carbon emissions, then, refers to the production and release of carbon into the atmosphere, which is estimated at 80% of all gas emissions. What is important to note is that carbon dioxide is not the only gas that is harmful to the environment, so a meaningful reduction in overall emissions cannot be focused solely on carbon. Still, it is paramount to address carbon quickly and effectively.
Carbon emissions happen at every level of businesses; sourcing, transportation, production, consumption, all have varying amounts of emissions. To address each level, these emissions were separated into Scope 1, 2, and 3 Emissions:
Scope 1 Emissions are directly caused by facilities or equipment that your company owns or controls.
Scope 2 Emissions are indirectly created from the generation of purchased energy.
Scope 3 Emissions are indirectly generated throughout a company’s value chain.
Scope 1
This first level of emissions is the easiest to understand: emissions caused directly by a business’s operations, including manufacturing processes and gas-powered vehicles owned and operated by the company itself. Scope 1 emissions are usually the first target of any company, given that companies have complete control over them.
Scope 2
The second level of emissions are indirectly produced by a company’s processes. For example, the energy consumed at an office park is a good example of scope 2 emissions because this is not energy produced by the company but is instead bought to facilitate operations.
Scope 3
The third level of emissions has been a topic of much debate among sustainability offices and, as a result, has been largely ignored. Scope 3 emissions are indirectly produced up and down the company’s value chain. They include emissions produced from sourcing the material for a product to the way in which the product gets used and disposed of.
Because Scope 3 emissions are not the direct byproduct of production and operations, companies generally wash their hands off these emissions. ExxonMobil states that “scope 3 emissions do not provide meaningful insight into the Company's emission-reduction performance and could be misleading in some respects.” You see, to take into consideration Exxon Mobil’s scope 3 emissions would be to include the consumer’s use of their product (i.e. oil) into their emissions profile, and that is just not beneficial to “the Company,” so they ignore it.
Carbon Neutrality vs Net Zero Emissions vs Carbon Free
One of the biggest buzzwords of the last two decades is “carbon neutral,” and along with it is its twin sibling - Net Zero Emissions. Many governments have announced goals to achieve carbon neutrality in twenty, or thirty, or fifty years. Many companies and educational institutions have also joined the pledge, adding to a growing sense that we will live in a much cleaner world by 2050. But, let’s assess what carbon neutral really means.
Carbon neutrality is the idea that a company (or institution, organization, etc.) offsets as much carbon as it produces. Let’s say that a company’s carbon emissions totals at 10 lbs a year (yeah, right…). To achieve carbon neutrality, the company would have to engage with carbon offsets that total -10 lbs of carbon a year. So, the amount of carbon produced equals the amount of carbon offsets, therefore allowing the company to claim carbon neutrality.
What is important to note about neutrality is the fact that carbon is still being produced and released into the environment - it just so happens that the producer is also engaging with offsets that balances the carbon ledger. Offsets can look like a number of different things, from planting trees to carbon capturing technology. However, the effects of carbon offsets are not as immediate as the effects of carbon emissions, so just how much of an equal-opposite reaction is it?
Carbon Free is the next step forward, and likely the one that will make all the difference in the future. Carbon Free is achieved when at no point in a company emits no carbon at any point in their chain of value. Nowadays, carbon free is a growing possibility given developments in technology. But breaking free from carbon emissions altogether will take serious commitment. For one, countries will have to commit to meaningful infrastructure development and break free from the hold of Big Oil.
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