The throwdown

“If you cannot set a credible course for net-zero, with 2025 and 2030 targets covering all your operations, you should not be in business.”

That’s António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, to the fossil fuel industry.

2023 already feels, to me anyway, like a year where a bunch of things will hit overdrive:

• 😃 The effort to squash out greenwashing will go way up;
• 😃 Pressure to beef-up emissions targets, without relying on offsets, will go way up;
• 😡 The number of offset options will go way up.

While the quote above is aimed very squarely between the eyes of fossil fuel CEOs, it’s worth a moment’s pause for anyone leading a company of any size.

Soon enough, we may all require a licence—social or otherwise—to operate beyond 2030.

If that panics you, this might help: Keep a mindset of reducing your overall emissions, rather than offsetting them, and your seat at the 2030 table will be saved.

Over the past year or so I’ve shared a stack of ways to reduce emissions, and countless more exist.

If you’d like a personalised emissions-reduction starter list, reply with your industry and location (eg, Accounting, Sydney”) and I’ll fire them back to you.