The Climate Pledge: Driving Change Before It’s Too Late
Established in 2019 by Amazon and Global Optimism, the Climate Pledge was built to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement -- 10 years early, by 2040. The Pledge centers around the greatest contributors to climate change, and therefore, those who have the most ability to make a difference: major organizations. Companies who sign the Pledge commit themselves to three primary requirements: regular reporting, carbon elimination, and credible offsets -- read the following to learn more about each of these requirements, and how your organization can make a difference.
Regular Reporting
Signatories of the Pledge are required to regularly report their greenhouse gas emissions on an annual basis. In order to report such numbers, they are expected to follow a commonly-accepted footprinting methodology, such as the GHG Protocol, which tracks corporate carbon emissions across supply chains, from indirect upstream activities, such as purchased goods and services, through direct company actions, like on-site electricity usage, all the way to indirect downstream activities, such as customer use of sold products. With these numbers in hand, organizations can begin to better understand the impacts that their operations have, as well as key areas for reductions and offsetting.
Carbon Elimination
Similar to the adage of “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle”, where the most emphasis is placed on reducing before reusing or recycling, when it comes to balancing carbon, organizations should first reduce, or “eliminate”, their footprints. This can be done through a variety of methods, collectively referred to as mitigation strategies. These entail major corporate innovations, such as efficiency improvements, increased renewable energy usage, and materials reductions. Even making relatively minor switches, such as the avoidance of corporate flights when possible, can drive major change -- after all, more than 2% of our current global emissions come from air travel alone. As organizations implement these mitigation strategies, their annual carbon footprints will begin to shrink, lowering their cost to offset and vastly improving their long-term impacts on the environment.
Credible Offsets
Finally, under the Climate Pledge, committed companies are required to purchase the number of credible offsets necessary to balance out the remainder of their carbon footprint. Offsets refer to investments made in carbon-reducing projects, such as reforestation initiatives or cleaner cookstoves for refugees, and are priced so that for each metric ton of CO2e emitted by an organization, a calculated dollar figure can be invested to directly counteract their remaining emissions. Offsets can be purchased from a variety of certified providers, such as Cool Effect, Nori, and BEF, who are verified by the likes of the Gold Standard and Verra.
How Your Organization Can Make a Difference
Recently, it was announced that 86 new companies had signed onto the Climate Pledge, including the likes of Procter & Gamble and Salesforce -- you can learn more here. For smaller organizations, particularly those who operate within non-manufacturing industries, going carbon neutral won’t take until 2040 -- it is an impactful undertaking which can be pursued and implemented at a low cost within a matter of weeks. The Software & Professional Services Carbon Neutrality Pledge was introduced by RyeStrategy to facilitate such change specifically for small to medium-sized organizations -- providing signatories with guidance on footprinting, mitigating, offsetting, and ethical marketing. Learn more about the Pledge here and commit to a greener tomorrow, today.
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About RyeStrategy
Based in Seattle, RyeStrategy is a CDP-accredited, mission-oriented company specialized in carbon accounting, mitigation coaching, and climate disclosure solutions for organizations at any point in their sustainability journey. Learn how RyeStrategy helped Salesforce, Ideascale, and Wazoku achieve their sustainability goals.
From exhaustive carbon footprinting and mitigation coaching, to setting science-based targets and reporting climate data to CDP, SBTi or custom reporting platforms, RyeStrategy acts as a hands-on extension of the team, custom-tailoring services to fulfill climate disclosure requirements easily and accurately.
Meet with a sustainability specialist to learn more about RyeStrategy solutions.
