How to carbon offset the impact of your e-commerce business
by Admin
Posted on 25-07-2022 10:21 am
carbon
offsets for e-commerce
quick facts
ecocart
about: a google chrome extension that automatically offsets the environmental impact of your online order when you shop with one of their partners. Funds offset projects including forest conservation, ocean cleanup, efficient cookstoves, and clean water filters. Cost for consumers: 1-2% of your cart total
cost for businesses: free
cloverly
about: a flexible api that calculates and neutralizes carbon emissions on a per-transaction basis by using inputs such as shipping weight and origination and destination postal codes, amongst others.
Funds offset projects including improved forest management, solar power, landfill gas capture, energy efficiency, wind power, and avoided deforestation.
Carbon-neutral shipping isn’t the only way to offset your business’s environmental impact. Depending on your margins and your level of commitment to sustainability, there’s always more you can do to give back what you take (or contribute to sustainability-minded causes). You can directly purchase carbon offsets, for example, to compensate for your emissions when flying or shipping packages the traditional way. (look for carbon offset companies that are certified by auditors or standards groups like green-e or the gold standard. ) you may also opt to incorporate charity into your business — perhaps by donating a portion of your profits or a cut from every purchase to an environmentally focused 501(c)(3).
E-commerce fulfillment company shipbob is the latest to jump into the carbon offset business. The company, with 16 global facilities, will utilize pachama to provide 100% carbon-neutral options for brands using the shipbob platform. “with e-commerce experiencing incredible growth, it’s important to consider sustainability,” said dhruv saxena, ceo and co-founder of shipbob. “that’s why we appreciate the strides and innovation pachama has brought to the industry and why we are a customer of pachama as well. We need to lead by example and practice what we preach. Our mission is to democratize fulfillment for companies of all sizes around the world, and to do this, we must consider the impact it has on the earth.
With simplizero ecommerce , at green story we support a diversified portfolio of projects around the world that cover everything from social infrastructure, renewable energy to reforestation. We believe each of us has a responsibility to clean our skies, green our planet and contribute to prosperous communities. What distinguishes our work is our ability to provide brands with tailored recommendations of carbon offset projects based on their product’s supply chain location and brand’s values. Our carbon offset platform, simplizero ecommerce, covers the carbon emissions of products and deliveries. This is all in pursuit of our green story vision to empower one billion consumers to know their impact and make choices that are better for the planet and future generations to come.
What is carbon offsetting?
Quite simply, carbon offsetting is a way to compensate for carbon dioxide emissions your e-commerce business can’t avoid producing. The idea is that by participating in carbon offsetting projects that organise activities such as planting trees, forest conservation, soil management, or investment in renewable technologies, you can replace the equivalent amount of carbon from the atmosphere that activities, such as shipping, for example, have produced. However, uncertainties and cynicism surrounds carbon offsetting as an imperfect solution that doesn’t actually solve the root issue.
It’s important to remember that carbon
offsets
aren’t a free pass for inaction and a way to buy a clean conscience.
Written by beth owens on march 2nd, 2022 sustainability is increasingly top of mind for today’s consumers. In fact, 92% of shoppers say they want to live more sustainably and 83% want to support brands that have a record of taking climate action. Brands are beginning to recognize this new reality and roll out new initiatives. But consumers are increasingly wary of so-called ‘greenwashing’ practices, where businesses mislead customers into thinking that their product or supply chain is more sustainable than it really is. In sum, they want to see evidence of authentic efforts to reduce carbon footprints. One of the easiest ways to do this? carbon offsetting.
Spotted: new zealand technology company carbonclick recently introduced its e-commerce platform for businesses. Rather than require every business to research, build and track its own carbon offsetting programme, carbonclick provides high-quality, internationally-vetted and fully traceable projects that support the work to reverse climate change. Businesses add a carbonclick option to their checkout processes, allowing customers to decide how much of their purchases to offset. Individuals can set up a monthly subscription to cover the cost of the carbon emissions of their regular activities. Each contribution made via carbonclick is split in half between a local forest regeneration or conservation project and an international clean energy one.
Home delivery is a tenet of ecommerce. The idea consumers could have purchases delivered directly to their homes was one the industry was built on. It also helped to establish one of ecommerce’s major benefits over traditional retail shopping: that it was much greener. That may no longer be the case, however. With rapidly decreasing shipping times, the environmental impact of ecommerce deliveries is coming under scrutiny. Eager to keep consumers flocking to their online stores and play their part in fighting the climate crisis, major brands are putting practices in place to offset the impact of their deliveries.
What are the carbon offset options?
Shippers can help reduce e-commerce’s carbon footprint through several strategies, including shrinking packaging materials, consolidating shipments and use of more fuel-efficient vehicles. That last point, though, is proving difficult. While electric delivery vehicles are growing in popularity, their overall carbon impact is difficult to determine, depending on how the electricity is generated. Additionally, ups ( nyse: ups ), which is among the leaders in alternative power vehicles, recently said that government grants are necessary to jump-start the adoption of electric vehicles. Most e-commerce shippers and the customers that order and consume those goods have few options to offset the carbon emissions short of refusing to make an online purchase.
While ecocart is easy to integrate and get started with, it is not a set-it-and-forget-it type of solution. After installation, the ecocart team works carefully with shopify merchants to help them track and understand metrics of success including donation rates, cart conversion, and customer loyalty. Plus, ecocart customers get access to a variety of marketing tools and templates to share the positive impact their brands are making on the world. Becoming a truly sustainable business can be expensive and time-consuming, especially for smaller businesses, but ecocart enables online merchants to do so quickly and effectively. While all merchants should do their research on the carbon offsetting options available to them, on shopify and elsewhere, it’s important to understand that many offsetting companies and projects do not provide transparency on where offset dollars are going, what kind of impact is being made, or why certain offsets have certain prices.
There are many tools available to offset carbon footprints. Our issue with many of these tools is they don’t actually give ecommerce businesses any useable data regarding their carbon footprint. A wide range of merchants across the ecommerce logistics, payments and platform industry are now providing options for automatic offsets. Schemes range from sendle to adyen automatically pay for carbon credits so retailers can offer “carbon neutral” shipping to consumers. This is an amazing development and something we fully support. The gap however is that offsetting is not a solution to the global climate change issue. Businesses need to have a detailed knowledge of their carbon footprint and work out long-term solutions to reduce this.
It is regulated by mandatory national, regional or international carbon reduction regimes. On the voluntary market the trade of carbon credits is on a voluntarily basis. What are the best choices for offsetting carbon? the best carbon offset programs for 2022 best overall: native energy. Best for tourism businesses: sustainable travel international. Best for monthly subscriptions: terrapass. Best for multiple environmental impact options: myclimate. Best for e-commerce and micro-contributions: carbon checkout. What is a carbon offset provider? carbon offset providers are companies that create portfolios of carbon offset projects and provide resources such as carbon emission calculators. Carbon offset providers can measure carbon footprints and help with an overall climate action plan leading to carbon neutrality.
How to choose the best carbon offset option
Carbon checkout first launched with shopify in 2015, and has since grown into one of the world's largest carbon offset distribution networks, spanning across 37 countries. Carbon checkout and its 2000+ ecommerce partners give individuals around the world the convenient option to offset the carbon footprint of any purchase, in one-click at checkout. We invest in renewable energy projects (wind and solar) and landfill gas capture (lfg) to energy projects that are third-party verified by the climate action reserve (car), verified carbon standard (vcs), the gold standard, and the clean development mechanism (cdm). This oversight ensures that all contributions are directed to only the highest quality projects, that:.
You’ve just added a product to your online shopping cart. As you’re finishing checking out, you see an option to offset the carbon emissions from your purchase for a small price. Do you pay extra to offset the carbon impact of your purchase? and should you, as the consumer, be responsible for that cost? those questions are increasingly popping up at checkout as ecommerce companies aim for carbon neutrality. They’re hard to answer, because it’s tough to gauge both where responsibility lies and the problems with some kinds of offsets. Public concern about the climate crisis is at record levels , and more startups are springing up to give people and businesses the option to offset carbon emissions.
February 01, 2022 12:55 pm eastern standard time new york--( business wire )-- ohi , the next-generation instant commerce platform that enables brands to meet their customers’ expectations of superfast delivery in under two hours, today announced that it has partnered with ecocart to offer a carbon-neutral e-commerce fulfillment option to ohi brand partners and their customers. Through the partnership, merchants that use ohi’s instant commerce solution can minimize the carbon footprint associated with delivery of their e-commerce orders through the use of carbon offsets. “research shows that the vast majority of consumers prefer to do business with eco-friendly companies whenever possible, and we’re absolutely committed to helping our merchant partners reduce the environmental impact of their businesses,” said ben jones, founder and ceo of ohi.
The cloverly api will calculate real time carbon offset costs for various scenarios during ecommerce check-out flows such as shipping. Cloverly, which can be integrated directly into checkout experiences can then allow customers the option to pay slightly extra as a means to offset their carbon footprint. That premium paid will be used by cloverly to purchase wind + solar energy credits on the customers behalf. Individuals can pick whether they choose to pay the carbon offset price or provide the option for customers to pay.
Is now really the time to be investing in green programs? you’re probably occupied with rising material, freight, and labor costs. And we don’t blame you, those are a big deal. However, now is the perfect time to add a sustainable aspect to your brand. Check out this podcast from mckinsey, it’s loaded with great data on the topic. Here are the top 4 takeaways:.
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In a nutshell, it’s the act of cancelling out the co2 emissions created in one place with activities that reduce emissions in another. as a simple example, a factory in the uk may record its annual carbon footprint, and then pay to plant trees in africa that will – at least in theory – absorb the same amount of co2 each year. Even if the factory then continues to pump the same amount of greenhouse gas into the air every year, it can claim to be carbon-neutral. Common types of carbon offsets include, but are not limited to: it easy to see why carbon offsets are such a polarising topic.
Climate neutrality of products and services is a hot topic for businesses trying to appeal to a growing sustainability trend: they understand consumers want to do the right thing without completely changing their way of life or purchasing habits. When companies actively engage in climate protection programs, they enable their customers to make climate-conscious decisions by assuming responsibility for unavoidable emissions and offsetting them through specific environmental contributions. From food producers to home goods to machinery components – any industry can now offset their product’s carbon emission and take advantage of this charitable opportunity.