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It’s Not Easy Being Green - 5
December 4, 2007

In our last Blog we discussed a request that our industry needs to create and adopt a standard language and/or standardized measurements to discuss these “greening efforts”. This has become one of the controversies of the green movement and requires an explanation.

It has become both good for the environment and good for companies marketing efforts to “reduce their carbon footprint” or become “carbon neutral”. In fact,  many sales people discuss these issues during sales calls and  companies promote these efforts in their marketing materials . However, the use of “carbon offsetting” a major tactic to “reduce your carbon footprint” or become “carbon neutral” while once considered a good tactic is now more closely scrutinized.

What does this mean and why is it controversial? What follows are excerpts from the wikipedia.org to help explain the backgroound and issues.

A carbon footprint is a "measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide. It is meant to be useful for individuals and organizations to conceptualize their personal (or organizational) impact in contributing to global warming. Global warming, a recent warming of the Earth, is believed to be the result of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The greenhouse effect is the process in which the emission of infrared radiation by the atmosphere warms a planet's surface. Greenhouse gases are components of the atmosphere that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases include in the order of relative abundance water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. 

A tool used in response to carbon footprints are carbon offsets, or the mitigation of carbon emissions through the development of alternative projects such as solar or wind energy or reforestation. Carbon dioxide is generated as a byproduct of the combustion of fossil fuels. Due to human activities such as the combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by about 35% since the beginning of the age of industrialization.

Next issue - more about carbon offsets and why some people consider them controversial.

Posted by Howie Fenton on December 4, 2007 | Comments (0)