A Selection of Method Products
“For every thousand strikes at the branch, one strike at the root.”
Method has been offsetting the carbon footprint for both employee travel and the manufacture of our plant-based soaps and personal care products since 2004. But last fall we started to think about a better way to invest that money. Working with carbon offset provider NativeEnergy, we’ve developed a novel ‘carbon reduction’ program that emphasizes the primary importance of reducing, rather than just offsetting, our carbon emissions. The program creates financial incentives for our suppliers to identify the opportunity where we can prevent carbon emissions by partnering with them to find efficiencies and product development and design-sided emission reductions.
Program Structure
Working with NativeEnergy, we start by performing an initial carbon audit. First, we identify all carbon emitted from direct energy consumption in the company’s offices and in the manufacture of our products at our first tier supply chain partners – the bottle manufacturing, and the product blending and filling. Second, we identify all carbon emitted from energy consumed in employee work travel and daily commutes.
We then work with our suppliers to look for areas where we can reduce emissions – primarily through efficiencies and best practices in the manufacturing process. For any reductions achieved, we shift payments for the offsets that would have been required to the supply chain partner. That’s right, we pay our suppliers to reduce their emissions.
We calculate total reduced carbon over a two-year period and pay a reduction incentive in the value of the offset per ton of avoid carbon emission. This incentive will also be paid in any subsequent years for which the carbon reduction averts offsets Method would have otherwise purchased. Our current goal is to be able to move at least 10 percent of the money we currently use to purchase offsets into the incentive program over the next two years.
Prior to this program, the majority of our investment was in offsets with no way to encourage actual reductions. THis program realigns Method’s investment in climate change mitigation to our strategic priorities, which are: avoiding emissions where possible, using renewable fuels and offsetting the remaining emissions with high quality, traceable offsets.
Be the Change Recommendations
Ask your supply chain partners to identify sources of energy efficiency. They’ll know their business better than you or any consultant. You’ll be surprised at the results.
Explore carbon offset suppliers that an also help manage and reduce a company’s carbon footprint. Remember: reduce, reduce, reduce, then offset.
Look at your whole business – from manufacturing footprint to employee commutes – to see where changes will have the biggest effect.
NOTE: This article originally appeared in the (A Supplement to )
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