ClearSky Limited

Amazon to require key suppliers to provide decarbonization plans Kara H. Hurst #decarbonization #supplychain #netzero #sustainability #scope3

Earth Day. To some, it's a once-a-year reminder to thank Mother Earth. To us, it's the day that best represents our everyday mission – to take on climate change with unity, collaboration, and shared purpose. This Earth Day, join us in celebrating our certified brand community, their dedication to leading on climate action, and the way they are united in climate accountability. Last year alone, 347 Climate Neutral Certified brands measured 1,383,163 tonnes of GHG emissions, filled 480 reduction action plans – and then set 780 more, and invested $10,547,755 in verified carbon credit projects. These numbers are stories of a collective commitment to chart the path to a just, net-zero future. Join us as we celebrate our community and the incredible strides we've made together – and together, we will continue to drive positive change for our planet and future generations. Happy #EarthDay 💙🌍🌱

I hear a lot of glib dismissal of cost considerations in the environmental community these days. As in, “who cares how much companies are paying to decarbonize, they caused this mess and they should pay to clean it up” and “anything we do to engage with fossil fuel companies gives them a license to pollute and “prolongs their life”. While I am sympathetic to this argument, it’s a dangerously counterproductive one if we’re actually interested in transitioning the global economy and delivering anywhere near the billions of tons of emissions reductions and trillions of dollars needed on an annual basis. As a crucial reminder about why the environmental community should very very much care about how much this transition costs- Larry Fink in his annual investment letter recently said: “that to ensure energy security while decarbonizing will extend the reliance on fossil fuels - “even the most climate-conscious among them saw that their long-term path to decarbonization will include hydrocarbons, albeit less of them, for some time to come.” This last point is the important one- we cannot wave a magic wand and remake the global economy in the next ten years. Believe me, I wish we could. The low carbon economy transition- if we’re actually going to succeed at it- is going to look a lot like various shades of brown to light green for a long long time to come. Our stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge the very real and dominant forces that *actually* drive business decision making in the real economy and the fact that the alternative for the vast majority of companies is to DO NOTHING, not to put themselves out of business voluntarily because “that’s what the science says” will doom us to losing the climate change war. The cost of this transition matters, A LOT. We need to start getting comfortable with the hard and uncomfortable compromises we’re all going to have to make in our ideology- FF interests and the far left NGOs especially- if we have a prayer of meeting global temperature goals. Cost matters, and that’s why cost containment and cost consideration cannot be dismissed as a “corporate talking point defending greenwashing practices”. That’s also why pricing the externality as comprehensively and as quickly as possible in as many parts of the globe as we possibly can is paramount. It’s why I refuse to give up on carbon markets. They work. They price carbon. They change business models. They contain and share more equitably the costs and benefits of the transition. Are they perfect? Nope. But they’re the best thing we have available today, so we need to make them work as well as we possibly can. The transition is necessarily going to messy, and incremental, and filled with setbacks. I’m ready to have a real conversation about what it’s going to take to transition the economy. It’s time for the “silent majority” to step up and start reclaiming the middle ground that is, in fact, our only viable path forward.