Editor: We see the terms “carbon negative,” carbon neutral,” zero carbon” and others increasingly mentioned as imperatives for addressing climate change and a standard for responsible business practices, and and “climate positive” have recently popped up in branding. The following is excerpted from More companies want to be “carbon neutral.” What does that mean?, Terry Nguyen, June 16, 2020, Vox.com.
Within the past six months, I’ve received a slew of pitches for products and services that all sound eerily similar: a “climate positive” parka and burger, a “carbon negative” vodka, a “carbon neutral” shipping service, a “carbon zero” commuting app, and “zero carbon” coffee.
For scientists and environmentalists, these phrases have been around for a while, but it’s only recently that companies, from small startups to established corporations, have adopted them for mainstream marketing use. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos pledged to have the company be carbon neutral by 2040; Microsoft has committed to be carbon negative by 2030; Starbucks aims to be “resource positive” within a decade by reducing carbon emissions, water withdrawal, and landfill waste by 50 percent; JetBlue intends to make all of its domestic flights carbon neutral starting in July; and Heathrow Airport in London pledged to be carbon neutral in its operations by 2030, excluding the emissions from flights.
In June, the consumer goods giant Unilever — which manufactures 70,000 types of products, from skin care to ice cream — announced its aim to be carbon neutral by 2039 and how it will disclose on labels the amount of carbon used to produce items. The company also stated it will try to cut emissions as much as possible before purchasing carbon offsets to achieve neutrality.
These terms can admittedly be confusing for the average consumer. But the move toward specific terminology isn’t just semantics. Eco-friendly language can help yield actual change by encouraging businesses to be more proactive and transparent.
First, let’s define what these phrases mean:
Carbon neutral: A product or company that’s carbon neutral (or carbon-free) is removing the same amount of carbon dioxide it’s emitting into the atmosphere to achieve net-zero carbon emissions, usually by purchasing carbon offsets or credits to make up the difference. For example, the Australian shipping service Sendle buys credits through the South Pole Group to “cancel out” the carbon its deliveries emit by supporting sustainability projects.
Zero carbon: Zero carbon is a term commonly applied to buildings and modes of transportation that are carbon-neutral. For a building that’s zero carbon-certified by the International Living Future Institute, it must offset its energy use through renewable sources, in addition to any carbon emissions resulting from its construction.
Carbon negative: A carbon-negative company removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases (the phrase “climate positive” has been used interchangeably with carbon negative). This requires going beyond achieving carbon neutrality. Air Co, a vodka company based in Brooklyn, sources waste gases and carbon dioxide from beverage manufacturing plants or ethanol factories. The gas is then liquefied and shipped to the company’s facility, where it’s converted to alcohol.
Consumers, for their part, have long been wary of buzzy marketing terms. Corporate greenwashing, which started in the 1960s, is a marketing practice that leads customers to believe that a company’s products are more eco-friendly than they actually are, when companies display words like “conscious,” “sustainable,” and “ethical” on their ads.
Surveys have found that consumers today are actually buying sustainably marketed products, not just saying they want them. The market is filled with sustainable products, and there’s a higher risk of being called out for not walking the walk. In 2018, the fast-fashion giant H&M was criticized by the Norwegian Consumer Authority for “misleading” marketing of its Conscious Collection. The retailer wasn’t specific about what sustainability entails or what types of “sustainable” materials its clothes were sourced from, which could confuse shoppers.
That’s because many words used to market “green” products, as is the case with most branding lingo, are opaque and can be interpreted differently by consumers. But this new wave of carbon-specific lingo is different, and it’s not just brands setting these kinds of carbon reduction targets — cities, states, and, in some cases, countries are setting them, too. Companies or localities can’t just say they’re carbon-neutral; they should, theoretically, be able to document and show that they’ve, for instance, switched from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy.