Declaring perfection

1: Questioning suppliers
2: The Pratfall effect
3: 👉 You are here

ICYMI, the other day I emailed a supplier about their claim of having "no carbon footprint" and shared it here (links above).

The reply was a little staggering to me:

"...we open up our books and provide all information to allow an audit of all our business activities (products, logistics, offices, employees, travel, etc). They work with their engineers to offset absolutely all aspects of our organisations operation, so our carbon footprint doesn’t exist."

A+ for transparency, and opening up the books. Offsetting also good, provided they've done all the emissions reductions they possibly can, and are now just offsetting the stuff that still creates emissions, but they can't reduce any further. They do pull plastic from the ocean and turn it into the products they sell - that's seriously huge.

But to say a carbon footprint doesn't exist is simply not possible, not in any way.

Why it matters

It could be seen as a simple case of semantics.

"We offset everything";
"We're 100% carbon neutral";
"Our carbon footprint doesn't exist".

However you slice it, offsetting amounts to the same thing... whether you believe the offsets are effective or not, on paper it's a zero-sum. Emit this much, offset that much, total = zero.

But declaring that your footprint doesn't exist, particularly on the back of buying offsets, does 2 things.

1. In a way, it's training consumers to believe things that simply aren't possible, kind of how "carbon neutral" is often used to trick consumers into believing a company is doing more than it really is.
2. It claims that all the good that can possibly be done by your company has already been done. No intention of improving anything and no goals around emission reduction, sustainable sourcing, reduced reliance on shipping etc, because it's simply not needed. Nothing more can be done, we made it.

My intention isn't to throw rocks at this company, they're clearly doing a lot of good and are happy talking about it.

But word choices, as well as future intentions, matter enormously.

Our conversation continues, so I'm keen to understand more about what they offset and what emissions reduction work they've already done to strengthen their claim. From this though, my suspicion is that offsetting makes up a large part of the strategy, rather than a supplemental step.

To my view, rather than the declaration of perfection, this is a perfect opportunity for a minor pratfall... something like:

"We offset all of our emissions, but acknowledge this is just the start. We're not perfect. Our overseas manufacturing is currently as clean as we can get it, but we aim to bring manufacturing onto Australian shores to reduce our reliance on international shipping by 2030"... or something.

Does this feel nit-picky to you? I'm really keen to know. I'll hop down off my soapbox so you can reply and get up right in my face about it.