Carbon management is often about decreasing the climate footprint and improving sustainability performance. While that’s a good start, it’s far from enough. To meet the Paris agreement’s target, to limit the average global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celcius, we believe that more organisations need to work in a climate positive way.
What does climate positive mean?
A climate positive approach seeks to both reduce emissions and sequester carbon. This can, for example, be done through carbon sequestration in agricultural land within an organisation or by purchasing carbon credits in certified projects.
A climate positive product, service or organisation must meet two criteria. First, a standard for neutrality needs to be met (e.g., ISO 12021:2017 or PAS 2060:2014) and then the carbon offset needs to be greater than the measured carbon footprint.
A five-step method
We offer companies and organisations support in the process towards climate positive products, services and organisations. The requirements differ depending on the type of product and sector, but the method can be summarized in five steps:
- Analysis based on a chosen standard or a specification of the aim, including a marginal for uncertainty.
- Verifiable documentation of data and sources for transparency and traceability.
- Third-party assurance (this is not a requirement, but we recommend it for increased credibility).
- Action plan to decrease the carbon footprint.
- Climate offsetting of the measured carbon footprint (including marginal for uncertainties) and at least an additional 10 percent in certified projects to become climate positive.