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23. What Does it Mean to be Climate Neutral? with Austin Whitman

Writer's picture: Meg CarneyMeg Carney


In episode 23 of the Outdoor Minimalist Podcast, I had the pleasure of learning the ins and outs of carbon and climate neutral certifications from the CEO of Climate Neutral Certified, Austin Whitman.


Austin Whitman is the CEO and a co-founder of Climate Neutral, a nonprofit that provides a trusted certification for carbon neutrality. Since its launch in 2019, Climate Neutral has worked with over 400 companies.


The Climate Neutral Certified label is used on thousands of products and has quickly become the leading consumer climate label. Austin's work in climate change began nearly 20 years ago and has spanned across roles in finance, policy, cleantech, consulting, energy, and nonprofits.


Climate Neutral



 

This transcript was edited to remove some filler words and phrases and is not verbatim according to what is spoken in the audio recording.



Meg: Thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show, Austin. I'm grateful that you wanted to jump on and talk about the importance of carbon-neutral certifications and how all of that works.


But before we get into that, do you want to talk a little bit about how outdoor recreation fits into your life and some of the activities you enjoy outdoors?


Austin: Sure. Well, it's great to be talking to you, Megan. Yeah, outdoors is a good place to start. I’d say my own sort of desire to work on climate change probably originates from spending a childhood mostly outside. It’s kind of the only thing we really did as a family—go explore the outdoors in local parks, nature trails, and what have you.


Over the years, I’ve done my share of kayaking and canoeing, particularly up in the Great North Woods in Maine. I’ve also enjoyed sailing, rowing, running, triathlons, backpacking, mountain biking, road biking, gravel biking—you name it. When I’m not in front of my computer, I love doing something outside.


Now I have two kids who seem equally interested. Honestly, most of the time, they’re begging us to get outside on weekends to do something fun. This winter, their big complaint is that there hasn’t been enough snow to play in.


Meg: That’s an interesting complaint! I feel like most people are like, “This is too much snow!” Unless, of course, you’re really into skiing and snowboarding.


Austin: Or snowmen, sledding, and things like that. Yeah, it’s great to wake up in the morning and see that layer of white outside.


Meg: It is! So, is Maine where you live currently and where the main offices for Carbon Neutral are based?


Austin: No, I’m actually in Boston. We’re a virtual organization with folks in a lot of different places. We have someone in Vermont, someone in Brooklyn, New York, a woman in Rhode Island, and team members in Seattle and Southern California. We’re kind of spread all over. We’ve taken advantage of the flexibility of virtual work to hire great people wherever they are, and we don’t see an end to that anytime soon.


Meg: That’s great. So, first off, let’s talk about the basics of what carbon neutral is. For the audience that isn’t fully aware, can you define what carbon neutral means and explain what exactly the certification is?


Austin: Yeah, definitely. There’s a lot of “word salad” going on when it comes to terms like this. Our certification is called Climate Neutral Certified, and it’s essentially a version of carbon neutrality. People may have also heard of terms like “climate positivity” or “carbon negativity,” but we wanted to create a very simple definition of carbon neutrality, represented by our label, Climate Neutral Certified.


It means the same thing regardless of whether you’re a small services firm or a large consumer products manufacturer. Essentially, it means a company has taken steps to estimate its carbon emissions from producing goods and services and delivering them to customers.


Then, they take the total footprint they’ve generated over the course of a year and invest in eligible, verified carbon credits to compensate for those emissions. At the same time, they begin the hard work of reducing emissions over time so they can rely less on carbon credits in the future.


That’s the basic definition as we see it. I’d say the most important considerations are:

  • How much of your emissions are you counting?

  • What are you doing about them and when?

  • What steps are you taking to address them in the future?


Meg: That makes sense. Are there other options available, or are you kind of the authority in this realm?


Austin: There are certainly global standards that have been evolving over the past 10 years or so. In that sense, we’re not a standard-setting body in the same way that organizations like the International Standards Organization (ISO) or the British Standards Institute are.


Where we stand out is as a recognizable, consumer-facing label. A lot of the existing standards haven’t been put into practice in a way that’s technically accessible, simple to understand, or recognizable by consumers. We’ve invested a lot of time in translating these more complex frameworks into something companies can navigate in a matter of months.


We’ve also worked to create messaging and information about the certification that makes sense to consumers. So, are we an authority on carbon neutrality? As much as anybody, I think. We’re very thoughtful about what goes into a carbon neutrality claim. But where we really emphasize our work is in bridging the somewhat confusing landscape of terms and concepts with the needs of busy consumers who want to make a difference but don’t always know how.


Meg:Yeah, that makes sense. It’s more consumer-facing because, a lot of times in the sustainability realm, people are asking, How can we identify a more sustainable company or product? 


Certifications like yours make it easier—if someone can quickly identify a logo, it helps drive transparency and understanding on the consumer end. I think that’s really valuable.


Why do you think this certification is so important for companies to pursue and represent?


Austin: Well, climate change is the most important environmental challenge in the world. Companies worldwide are responsible for, depending on how you look at it, somewhere around 100 percent of global emissions. Maybe not quite 100 percent if you count natural systems, but essentially, people are causing climate change, and people mostly act through companies.


Whether it’s a company making fossil fuels to power automobiles, a company making high chairs for your kitchen, or a company making mountain bikes, companies fundamentally sit behind the decisions that lead to global emissions.


When we started the organization, we looked at a landscape filled with lots of eco-labels. However, many of those labels didn’t speak directly to the impacts of climate change or climate-warming emissions. That’s why we felt it was important to introduce something that addresses this issue head-on.


Meg: Right. So, before we get into the nitty-gritty of how companies can implement these types of practices—whether or not they specifically pursue Climate Neutral Certified through you—you mentioned a couple of terms earlier that might be confusing to listeners. Can you explain the difference between being carbon neutral and carbon positive?


Austin: Yeah, or climate positive, or carbon negative, or anything like that. Honestly, it’s just a game of numbers—how much you’re doing about your carbon emissions and how quickly.


In the simplest sense, carbon neutrality means measuring all of your emissions and compensating for them one-to-one. Climate positivity or carbon positivity, while we don’t have an official definition, is often used to describe when a company goes above and beyond their actual annual emissions to do more.


For example, if a company has a carbon footprint of 30,000 tons but decides to invest in capturing or avoiding 50,000 tons, some might say they’ve gone “carbon positive.”

There are also different ways to apply that concept. Not all carbon credits or mitigation actions do the same thing.


Some credits avoid future emissions—for example, renewable energy prevents emissions from coal-fired electricity. Others capture, sequester, or remove existing emissions—for instance, reforestation removes CO₂, and direct air capture technology pulls emissions from the atmosphere.


There are frameworks that define climate positivity as relying on actions that sequester or capture emissions, rather than just avoiding them. So, there’s a lot of nuance.


The most important thing is that we’re having these conversations and that many companies are starting to take these efforts seriously.


Meg: Yeah, there are definitely a lot of nuances. I get confused pretty easily when companies try to explain how they offset emissions, but we’ll get into that a little later.


Before we talk about how offsets work and how companies pursue them within the framework you’ve set up, how do companies qualify for a carbon-neutral certification?


Austin: Yeah, so they have to go through a process similar to what I just outlined. This involves measuring their carbon emissions, which we call “cradle-to-customer.” It includes everything from the supply chain all the way through to delivering products or services to customers. Then, they need to compensate for all those emissions immediately and begin working on steps to reduce them.


That, in essence, qualifies a company for certification. It’s a process we’ve designed to be fairly lightweight, so companies can typically get through it in three to four months. Our requirement is that they do this annually—it’s not a one-and-done process.


Instead, the first time they go through it becomes the beginning of a journey toward better understanding their emissions, collecting better data, developing improved management systems, and building internal teams with the expertise to manage carbon emissions as part of their operations.


Meg: Do you just provide the general framework and help them gather all that data, or are you also the team that helps them figure out how to actually become carbon neutral?


Austin: We do a mix of both. Ideally, we’d just write the rule book, and companies would come to us to show they’ve fulfilled the requirements of the standard. We’d then say either yes, they met the criteria, or no, they didn’t, and certify the ones that did.


But reality is far from ideal. What we’ve found is that many companies are just beginning to understand their carbon impacts. So, we’ve built a program to enable them through the process—helping them figure out what carbon offsets are, which ones make sense for their business, how to measure their emissions, and where to focus on reducing emissions in the future.


You might ask, “As a certifying entity, is that the right thing for you to be doing?” We think so, but we treat these aspects as fairly separate. We have an external advisory group to guide the standards, ensuring they’re objective and easy to apply. Internally, our team works closely with companies to help them meet these criteria.


Yes, we use self-reported data, but we collaborate with companies to ensure the data they collect translates into actual emissions and actionable steps.


Meg: That sounds like a very involved process! I didn’t really know what I envisioned happening when companies get certified, but it seems like you’re all hands on deck throughout, which is awesome.


One thing I’ve heard before—and struggled to understand—is how you regulate offsetting carbon emissions. How do you control the certification process? Or is it up to the individual companies to decide how they offset emissions?


Austin: It depends. For smaller companies, we require them to purchase offsets through us for logistical reasons. It would be a lot of work for us to manage different verifications and documentation checks across numerous small companies.


For medium and larger companies, they have the option to purchase offsets on their own, provided they submit the required documentation, or to have us purchase them on their behalf. Either way, we have a set of standards and eligibility criteria for projects that companies must follow.


Meg: I’m not sure if you can answer this, but from a consumer standpoint, if I saw a company claim they were carbon neutral or positive, how would I know their offsetting efforts are legitimate?


Austin: That’s a great question. There are two pieces to this: the legitimacy of the carbon neutrality claim itself and the credibility of the methodology and carbon credit selection.

Let me give an example. For carbon neutrality, we’ve seen companies pick a very small part of their operations—like one office building, employee commuting, or shipping emissions—which might account for less than five percent of their total impact.


They achieve carbon neutrality for just that piece and then claim, Hey, we’re a carbon-neutral company! That’s not legitimate because it doesn’t reflect the comprehensive effort we need to reduce global emissions.


For carbon offsetting practices, there are many factors to consider. The most important starting point is ensuring carbon credits are purchased from a narrower, high-quality list of projects. There are many projects out there that aren’t verified by third parties or don’t have a long-term impact.


For example, we often see companies promote tree-planting initiatives as a way to mitigate emissions. While I love trees and tree planting is important, very few of these projects have the long-term stewardship necessary to count them as reliable assets for carbon neutrality. It’s difficult to quantify the benefits of these projects without ongoing oversight. Many simply plant the tree and move on without tracking its progress or survival.


We tell companies, This is great work, but to count it as credible, we need much more information about long-term impact.


Beyond that, there are other rules in our standards, such as the year the carbon credits originated, verification processes to ensure projects deliver as promised, and exclusions based on project type or geography. It’s a complex matrix, but fundamentally, a carbon neutrality claim should be comprehensive, and carbon credits should come from high-quality projects and developers.


The final piece is that offsetting should be paired with efforts to reduce emissions. There’s a global consensus that carbon offsets can be effective, but only when combined with a clear plan for reducing emissions. Companies should also be transparent about their reduction strategies and their plans for the next five to ten years, even if it’s just an honest acknowledgment of what’s feasible.


Meg: Yeah, that was a lot for me to unpack, so I’m going to take a couple of pieces that you discussed. I’m really glad you brought up the tree-planting example because I think that is used so often.


Sometimes, when I’m looking at a company, I see they highlight that tree-planting offset, but it’s really the only representation of any type of environmental pursuit they’re showing. So, I don’t think it’s necessarily very transparent, and it’s interesting to hear you talk about that longevity piece.


My question is: What is a carbon offset that, if a company was paying you for the offset, would be an example of one that is more credible?


Austin: Yeah, and companies pay. To be clear about the role we play, we’re not a project developer. We simply work with third parties who run projects. But if a company is purchasing a carbon credit through one of our carbon credit pools, what we’re looking for is a project that checks a series of boxes.


You’d want to ask: Would that project have happened without the money from carbon finance? Can you measure the outcomes from that project? Does the project have a long-term stewardship plan? Did that project harm any communities or people in the process of being brought to life?


Then there are other considerations, like whether the project is in a stable governmental regime. If not, does that introduce risk? Or was there cooperation with local communities in such a way that there’s a governance structure for the project?


So, there’s a lot we dig into when we look at these projects. We also work with a couple of partners who do similar work to scrutinize projects. That way, we can make sure the money companies are investing is being put to the best use.


Meg: It’s really nice to hear that framework and the specifics you’re looking for when you evaluate those offsets. Something else you mentioned was carbon reduction. Earlier, you said that there’s a yearly check-in with carbon emissions, which is awesome.


When you’re working with companies year after year, do you also help build the framework for how they can start reducing emissions and not just offsetting them?


Austin: We have a limited amount of resources in this area, and our hope is to at least create the framework and the reduction reporting model for companies. But our job isn’t to be consultants. We don’t have the capacity for that, and frankly, I don’t love that as a business model.


There are plenty of other smart people who can do that work. So, while we do get the ball rolling, it really takes other resources and expertise to keep it rolling, especially as companies get deeper into their journey.


Meg: That makes a lot of sense. With all the work you’re already doing, it would be impossible to wear all of those hats and do it really effectively. I’m going to switch gears a bit because I have some questions specifically about the outdoor industry.


I’m not sure if you have data on this—it’s okay if you don’t—but I’m curious about outdoor gear companies and industry trends in terms of carbon emissions. How are they contributing to, I guess, the climate crisis?


Austin: That’s as good a way to phrase it as any. I don’t think the outdoor industry is particularly different from any other consumer products industry. From the data we’ve seen with companies we work with, the emissions of a typical outdoor product don’t vary much from companies making products unrelated to the outdoors.


What I mean is that most outdoor products are made in factories overseas—Vietnam, China. They typically contain a mix of plastics, metals, chemicals, and coatings. These products are then put in boxes, shipped to warehouses, and often shipped directly to customers. The methods for doing all of that don’t differ much from the fashion and apparel industry or even the home goods industry.


I wouldn’t say that outdoor companies, in general, have excelled at halving their carbon footprint or meeting other benchmarks we’re aiming for in the next 10 years. That said, the outdoor industry does a fantastic job of talking about what needs to happen. There’s a tremendous amount of collaboration among outdoor companies keenly working to align on ways to reduce emissions and improve production processes.


But, in my opinion, that hasn’t necessarily resulted in a significantly lower average carbon intensity for products compared to other industries.


Meg: Interesting. That’s related to another question I wanted to ask. The general perception is that people who enjoy outdoor recreation are more environmentally focused, given how much time they spend outside. I’m not necessarily asking about consumer habits, but more about industry habits. Do you feel like more outdoor industry companies are pursuing Carbon Neutral Certified or similar certifications?


Austin: Our origins are in the outdoor industry. We launched at the Outdoor Retailer event in June 2019, so we definitely have a strong contingent of outdoor products companies that have become certified.


That said, there are other industries, like health and beauty, that have moved very quickly and aggressively into climate initiatives. In their case, it’s an extension of the “clean beauty” movement. Reducing chemical toxicity in products you put on your body has evolved to include reducing climate toxicity.


So, while we do have many outdoor products companies that have taken this on, I wouldn’t say the outdoor industry is uniquely progressive compared to others.


Meg: Yeah, that’s good to hear. Also, really, I would not have guessed that beauty products would be kind of a standout. I don’t know why—that’s an interesting correlation, but it makes a lot of sense. What do you think could happen in the outdoor industry to help move that needle a little bit further?


To help more companies not just have the conversation—because, like you said, the conversation is happening a lot—but actually enact changes in their business models to not only be carbon neutral but to start that reduction piece that’s also important?


Austin: Yeah, I wish I had a single answer to this question. It’s something that a lot of people are wrestling with. I think the circular economy is sort of one bite at the apple—where goods don’t necessarily travel from source to landfill, but they make their way back into circulation by being rehabbed, resold, or recycled. We’ve definitely seen a good amount of growth in that space within the outdoor industry.


That said, it’s probably not going to solve the climate challenge. The sheer power and size of the outdoor industry—$800 billion or so—of course, a good chunk of that is tied to tourism services and guiding, but a lot is tied to the manufacturing of physical products. For every one of those physical product companies to take this seriously, particularly the largest ones, is critical. I think we’ve seen the slowest movement from the largest companies.


I’m talking about those with, say, a thousand factories—they really need to step up and make commitments akin to what the smaller companies in the space are doing. Once we start to see that scale of ambition—meaningful work that’s actually happening—where these companies can demonstrate to their consumers exactly how much money is being invested in decarbonizing their supply chains, I think we’ll start to see some progress.


Meg: I’m glad you brought that up because that’s also something I started to notice while researching for the Outdoor Minimalist book. A lot of the big-name companies seem to be lacking in some of those respects. I saw a lot more action—or at least identifiable action—from smaller companies, which I thought was interesting.


I would have assumed that larger companies, with more resources, would find it easier to invest in that behavior. But it’s probably also difficult to change habits and supply chains when you’re operating on such a large scale.


Austin: Yeah, and I think with larger companies comes the pressure of larger investors or, in some cases, public shareholders. Larger companies also tend to have boards of directors that are recruited because they’re really good at commercial success, but they’re not necessarily mission-driven. Of course, there’s always an exception to every rule.


Still, broader stakeholder groups in larger companies are typically more focused on revenue growth and profitability than on passion and mission.


Meg: Right, and that kind of goes back to the longevity piece. If you’re going to wreck the spaces we want to recreate in, then we’re not going to use your products—but that’s a different conversation.


Austin: Yeah, I hope consumer pressure moves in that direction. But, in general, consumers and companies tend to express their opinions only to the point where it’s convenient. Once it starts to feel uncomfortable, most people move on.


A few vocal voices will stick around, but for most people, convenience wins out. For companies, the moment it becomes uncomfortable or costly to take on aggressive environmental programs, they’ll often back down, saying, “We don’t really have to do this, so let’s wait until next year.”


The same is true for consumers. It’s nice to send a tweet to a company saying, “Hey, get your environmental act together.” But at the end of the day, the consumer wants to bike down a trail or explore a glacier. They want good equipment to help them do that.


They’re probably not going to avoid buying a new ice ax, crampons, or mountain bike just because of the carbon cost of those items. Maybe we’ll get to that point someday, but I don’t think we’re seeing evidence of that happening on a broad scale yet.


Meg: One question I should have asked earlier: Do you only work with companies that produce hard goods? Or do you also work with companies, like guiding or tourism businesses, that might offset emissions from travel, such as vehicle or plane usage? Every business creates emissions in some way, so do you work with those types of companies as well?


Austin: We’ve worked with some services firms—PR, marketing, digital software, that kind of thing. But most of the companies we work with do make physical products.


For companies in guiding services or tourism, most of their emissions are tied to flight miles or other travel. Other than shrinking their business—thereby shrinking the number of miles traveled—it tends to be pretty hard to reduce that footprint.


The value we add is often more profound for companies with physical supply chains. These companies rely on lots of suppliers and materials, so they need help understanding and managing those processes better.


Meg: Yeah, that makes sense. It's a measurable realm, it feels like. But one thing I was also wondering is, is there a way to measure the impact of a product's afterlife? Or do you just stick to measuring once it reaches the consumer? Is that the end of the carbon measurement?


Austin: Yeah, we looked at this a little bit early on. It’s very difficult to model the use or disposal phase emissions. For example, the emissions from wearing a jacket, washing the jacket, and then getting rid of it in a landfill—which is where most of them would end up. Individual companies sometimes do life cycle analyses to understand the impact.


One of my favorite examples is a report Clean Kanteen did on the life cycle emissions of an average coffee mug. The impact really depends on how long you keep the mug. If you buy the mug and use it for a year or so, then get rid of it, most of the emissions come from the manufacturing process. But if you keep that mug for 20 years, the majority of the emissions come from the use phase, like heating water to wash the mug over all those years.


That example highlights how complex it is to model use phase emissions. Some attention has gone into things like laundry detergent. Large companies have looked at the energy benefits of washing in cold water and developed detergents for that. But how often do consumers actually set their washers to cold? It’s hard to model behavior like that across a broad population.


So, we approach this issue as having multiple sources of responsibility. Companies are responsible for product design decisions, manufacturing, and more. But at a certain point, consumer responsibility kicks in—how long you keep your clothes, whether you repair them or throw them away, or if you buy the latest style just because it looks better. That’s all up to you as a consumer, and it’s really hard to account for that behavior when modeling.


Meg: Yeah, that collective action builds up over time, especially in countries like the United States where individual carbon emissions tend to be higher than in other places in the world. So, I guess my final question is: Is there a way for individuals to offset their emissions? I’ve only really seen it with airlines. If you fly on a certain airline, you can offset your emissions, but what about measuring your general individual emissions over a year and offsetting them?


Austin: Yeah, if I were recommending to an average person what to do, I’d say don’t spend too much time trying to get an exact calculation of your individual footprint. It’s probably somewhere around 30 to 50 tons per year. The average American is estimated to produce 20 to 22 tons, but I think that grossly underestimates the real number because it doesn’t include the carbon emissions of the things we buy. A lot of what we’re discussing relates to those emissions.


Let’s assume it’s 30 to 50 tons per year. There are plenty of consumer carbon offsetting providers. Going to a website and buying 30 to 50 tons of offsets is a great start. But it’s also important to understand what causes your emissions. For example, the money you spend on consumer products matters, whether you choose overnight shipping or ground shipping, or if you decide to fly somewhere or adventure closer to home.


Airline emissions are a large chunk of individual emissions. Diet is another significant factor. How much meat you eat versus following a vegetarian diet makes a huge difference. One stat I was reminded of recently is that you could eliminate all the packaging from your food for 12 years, and it would only equal the emission savings of cutting meat from your diet for one year.


We think about packaging and plastic as being terrible—and it is, especially when it ends up in oceans. But from a carbon perspective, the benefits of shifting to a vegetarian diet are enormous. So much carbon is tied to the production of animal products. A shift away from a meat-based diet would make a big difference.


Meg: Yes, I agree. I think for individual consumers, it’s often easier to focus on visible waste, like packaging, because it’s so tangible. But when it comes to carbon emissions, it’s harder to pinpoint areas where reduction would have a big impact. Applying those changes is even harder because it often means breaking habits.


Those are all really great points, and I learned a lot about being Climate Neutral Certified just from hearing you talk. I didn’t fully understand the process or how companies are held accountable, so I’m really glad you could share all of that. For listeners wondering how to get in contact with you or work toward being Climate Neutral Certified, what’s the best way to reach you?


Austin: Yeah, thanks for the conversation and for having me on. I’d say our website is a great place to start. We’ve got information tailored for companies and consumers. Our Instagram is another good resource—it’s @beclimateneutral. We also post on LinkedIn and Twitter. Our Twitter handle is @climateneutral.


I’d encourage everyone to think about their favorite brands and the products they love. Reach out to those companies and let them know you care about the climate impacts of their operations. While there’s no single answer to climate change, we absolutely need more people demanding more. Consumer pressure can make a difference.


Meg: Absolutely. I’ll include all those links in the show notes so listeners can check them out. With that, thanks for being on the show!


Austin: Thanks for having me.


Meg: Thanks again to Austin for sharing his insights about the Climate Neutral Certification. I do want to clarify one thing—I kept saying “carbon neutral certified,” but it’s actually “Climate Neutral Certified.” That’s just a testament to how confusing some of these terms and phrases can be.


Austin is the CEO of Climate Neutral, and their certification is directly related to carbon neutrality. So, anytime I said “carbon neutral certified,” I meant “Climate Neutral Certified.”







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