We. Are. Carbon. Neutral!
***crowd goes wild, mother earth gives a little fist pump***
We really give a damn about what happens to our beautiful planet. We’ve spoken to you lots over the years (thanks for being such good listeners!) about the steps we’ve taken to minimise the harm in everything we do (ethical, social and environmental), but at the start of 2020, after Australia’s Black Summer that left us all shell shocked, we set ourselves an EPIC sustainability goal, to go carbon neutral by the end of the year.
We’ve partnered with a lovely bunch of nerdy experts (coz man, this stuff is COMPLEX!), who’ve painstakingly helped us measure our FY2020 carbon footprint.
We wanted to do more than just offset our emissions from factory gate to your front door, so we’ve taken things to the next level and are raising the bar! Our carbon credits offset the whole shebang of our agricultural activities, manufacturing and processing materials, and freight all the way to your hot little hands.
Our independent carbon neutral consultants then helped us find the most awesome verified carbon credit projects to offset that footprint.
We’ve chosen two amazing projects to partner with this year. First up is a the Kamuthi Solar Power Project in India (where most of our manufacturing happens). This project is critical in the region - it helps to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and thereby reduces pollution. The second project is the Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor - a brilliant native reforestation project in Australia (because we’re from the land down under!), that, as vegetation is replanted, will help to protect endangered native animals in the region.
Thank you all for caring and encouraging us to continue to improve our sustainability as a brand. Please know that your voices are SO important, and we really urge you to ask other brands you love to go carbon neutral too. As consumers, it’s important we all keep making conscious decisions about how we shop.
WHY GO CARBON NEUTRAL?
Because it’s the right thing to do. We believe climate change is real, and it’s caused by humans. We acknowledge that as individuals and as a business, we contribute to climate change ourselves. We also know that there are things we can do about it — like choosing to go carbon neutral!
WHAT’S A CARBON FOOTPRINT?
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organisation, service or product, expressed as a carbon dioxide equivalent.
WHAT IS CARBON NEUTRAL?
Carbon neutral is where our net carbon emissions are equal to zero by reducing our emissions as far as possible, and offsetting the unavoidable remaining emissions through the retirement of carbon offsets.
SO, WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR CARBON FOOTPRINT?
Going carbon neutral does not mean our footprint is reduced. We are thinking of this as two sides to the coin - on the one side we need to offset our current emissions, on the other side, we need to continue to take actions to reduce our footprint - that’s something we look at every single month and are continuing to identify and implement improvements to do things better.
WHAT ARE OFFSETS?
Carbon offsets, also known as carbon credits, are used by leading organisations to help reduce the impact of their carbon footprint. Each offset represents one metric tonne of greenhouse gas emissions (t-CO2e). When you purchase a carbon offset from a third party, you are essentially paying someone else to offset, or reduce, one tonne of carbon emissions from the atmosphere in another location, on your behalf. Effectively you are paying someone else to do what you can't.
WHAT ARE YOUR OFFSET PROJECTS?
We’ve proudly partnered with two incredible projects, one in Australia (where we are from) and one in India (where the bulk of our products come from). Both projects are backed by verified emission reductions generated that are certified by the world’s leading voluntary carbon standard, the VCS (Verified Carbon Standard).
WHO WERE YOUR CARBON NEUTRAL ADVISORS?
We worked with Point Advisory, who were great! We chose them after doing a heap of research to find the most credible and experienced mob around. Point Advisory partner with governments and business to tackle some of the most important sustainability challenges and develop innovative solutions. They have a team of engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, economists and consultants with deep technical knowledge. Point Advisory is carbon neutral and a Certified B Corporation.