How a product/service can be carbon-neutral?

Definition: one product or service is carbon-neutral when emission and absorption of CO2 are balanced some could approach

  • Carbon emission – Absorption from ecosystems – Carbon Credits = Zero

Based on this definition there are 3 ways to impact equation

  • Carbon emission: Reduce as much as possible emission of product / service during all life: creation, delivery, consumption and recycling, for enterprise who delivers and for customer who uses. Carbon emission = activity data * emission factor. Ex; electric-motor> CO2 = 10 kWh * 0.202 kg CO2 eq/kWh = 20.2 kg CO2 eq / h
  • Absorption from ecosystems: Help atmosphere to absorb as much as possible all CO2 generated by natural / technical means increasing ecosystems to absorb more.
  • Carbon Credits: When emission – reduction is not enough to get zero as a result you offset the difference using mechanisms as carbon credits (that are helping to finance projects to reduce remaining CO2 from atmosphere ) and pay for them, or do your self and initiate your own carbon offsetting projects to reach target Zero.

All products and services could be quantified in terms of CO2 emissions using defined standards and rules with a certain level of precision.

Collection of all small pieces and elements of CO2 is called Carbon footprint calculation and one of most critical aspects is being able to digitalize this process at lowest cost possible to allow customers to make buying decisions.

Once we know the capabilities of absorption and what is the residual amount of carbon credits we need to buy for each product we sale / use, allow digitalization, thanks to API mechanisms, to neutralize remaining CO2 in automatic mode to pay for CO2 Carbon Credits. So neutralization using Carbon Credit could be integrated in sales process.

Some simple example:

You have a website with 10,000 daily visits, to deliver this service you have

  • Carbon emission: the CO2 emitted for Electricity you use to power your IT infrastructure and related needed services.
  • Absorption: you are allowed due to regulations to emit xx% by your government. Sot her difference need to be compensated
  • Credits: compensation CO2 you need to buy to Traders or launch project to offset.
    • Cost generated by Credits offsetting could be proposed / charged to customers product / Service and they to decide if neutralize or absorbed directly by company.

Note: for each country you will get how to manage this process supported by government institutions, in Spain is done by MITERD