If you run a business (or have ever flown in an airplane) you’ve most likely heard of the term Carbon Offsetting. While switching to renewable energy is the most effective goal that you can have as a business or individual to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions, you might want to consider other ways to reduce the CO2 of your business in the short-term.
What is Carbon Offsetting?
Business success increasingly depends on your positive impact in society and the environment. With this in mind, companies are implementing sustainable business practices built on a combination of renewable energy and carbon offsetting to reduce their carbon footprint. COS is an example of a business that is actively working towards carbon neutrality – the goal of zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG).
Having installed hundreds of solar panels across their warehouses, COS now has the industry’s largest solar farm. But running your business completely on renewable energy requires long-term planning and investment – and some companies, whether production-based or service-based, produce GHG Emissions that unfortunately cannot be avoided.
This is where carbon offsetting comes into your sustainability strategy. Carbon Offsetting refers to the process of compensating for unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions that companies and individuals produce.
Carbon Credits
The most common way of doing this is through purchasing carbon ‘credits’ – paying an amount of money to invest in GHG absorbing projects such as clean energy (wind farms and solar panels). When you purchase carbon ‘credits’, your investment helps to offset your carbon footprint and slow down or reverse climate change.
Many carbon offsetting programs involve planting trees, because trees sequester carbon dioxide naturally as part of their photosynthesis process. These reforestation projects re-green urban landscapes, restore native ecosystems, and protect vital habitat for vulnerable and endangered species.
While some projects can be costly, some of these tree planting projects don’t even require a capital investment. For example, next time you browse the internet, try using Ecosia.org, the search engine that uses ad revenue to turn your questions into planting trees.
But another form of carbon offsetting doesn’t even involve planting trees – and it’s an investment that you may be able to incorporate into your business operations and architectural design on-site in the near future.
Meet our Unlikely, Slimy Hero
This is where Algae steps in. Algae is a naturally occurring diverse marine organism that forms a vital part of aquatic ecosystems. Like trees, algae use CO2 for energy. But unlike trees, algae has been found to be far more efficient at this task. Did you know that this little green slime actually produces over 50% of the world’s oxygen?
Researchers have started to turn to algae production not only as a profitable biofuel investment, a high-nutrient food group, and a biodegradable alternative to plastic, but also as an affordable and highly efficient form of carbon offsetting. Algae cleans the air and water of pollutants, effectively scrubbing up to 100% of toxic chemicals and heavy metals from the water and removing a large amount of CO2 from the air.
Micro-algae used for carbon sequestration is grown in water, usually inside glowing green tanks called bioreactors. The basic foods it needs is sunlight, some added nutrients, and the addition of the unfortunate by-product of human activities – CO2 gas – and this little slime is well on its way to converting our waste into clean fresh oxygen.
Carbon Sequestration Algae Farming
One company is already ahead of the flock. In collaboration with University College London and University of Innsbruck, EcoLogicStudio created micro-algae ‘curtain’ technology – paving the way towards carbon neutrality in architecture. Encased in lab-grade glass and 3D printed bioplastics, one Vertical Garden ‘bio-curtain’ can absorb CO2 equivalent of 20 large mature trees.
Other projects such as an ‘Urban Algae Canopy’ at Expo Milano 2015 can capture 4kg of CO2 and convert it into 2kg of oxygen per day, which is the amount of oxygen that three adults need to survive. It usually takes 25 large adult trees to do that!
It’s an exciting concept that Australian manufacturing companies are starting to take notice of. In collaboration with UTS science researchers, Sydney craft brewery Young Henry’s grow algae alongside beer in their warehouses to capture the CO2 emissions that beer manufacturing produces. Algae grown in their warehouse in less than 2 weeks can capture CO2 equivalent to two hectares of Australian bushland grown over 20 years. For reference, it takes one tree a full two days to absorb the CO2 from the fermentation of just one six-pack of beer.
The problem is that since this is a new breakthrough of investigation for scientists, setting up your own algae sequestration bioreactor can be a costly investment. It requires a lot of monitoring, feeding and harvesting – just like any other living ‘farm’.
Your Business Values Require Action
Carbon offsetting is an intangible investment that companies are sometimes sceptical about spending money on. But carbon offsetting is a vital component of your business practices – one that serves to neutralise your carbon footprint, while delivering important social, cultural, and economic benefits.
And while the benefits of algae farming for carbon sequestration is certainly game changing for businesses and individuals, you may want to first get involved in a project that has additional social and economic benefits for those who need it most.
Many carbon offsetting programs are an investment into sustainable development projects in developing countries. For example, the venture Paradigm Project employs rural Kenyan women to build more energy-efficient stoves, reducing the need for deforestation for firewood and helping women to raise their families out of poverty. The US Public Benefit Corporation NativeEnergy uses your investment to fund wind farms for schools, methane digesters for family farms, and renewable energy projects for Indigenous Peoples.
COS and Carbon Offsetting
Even if it’s unfeasible to set up an algae bioreactor in the middle of your office, reducing your carbon impact is important in your practices as a business.
For example, as a business with a strong emphasis on Corporate Social Responsibility, COS actively chooses to stock sustainable brands and eco-friendly products, work with Fair Trade and First Nations suppliers, that are committed to meeting sustainability criteria. In addition to installing solar panels across their warehouses, COS has also upgraded their delivery fleet – and that alone has led to a 70% reduction of carbon emissions.
By offsetting your carbon emissions, you are compensating for the GHG emissions your business produces, doing your part in helping to slow down climate change, and empowering sustainable development and innovation. Carbon offsetting fulfils the expectations of your company’s consumers, suppliers and stakeholders – the expectation that your company will act on the values of the community and give back to an important cause.
Whether it’s green slime, solar power or other carbon offsetting measures, reducing our carbon footprint paves the way to a better future for everyone.
