In order to become Carbon Neutral we've had to offset our production. Offsetting is a way of paying for others to reduce emissions or absorb CO2 to compensate for your own emissions. For example, by planting trees to suck carbon out of the atmosphere. Essentially, carbon offsetting means buying carbon credits that are equivalent to your carbon impact (e.g. your carbon footprint). This is basically balancing the books. If you have a remaining carbon footprint of 3 tonnes of CO2, you would have to purchase the equivalent amount in a carbon offsetting project to ensure 3 tonnes of CO2 is saved from the atmosphere elsewhere.
Some examples of offsetting projects;
The classic example that people give when talking about offsetting projects is planting trees. This is because it is easy to understand. Trees take CO2 out of the environment and so by planting more you can take more CO2 out of the environment.
However, there are a lot of offsetting projects that people don't consider. These include, but aren't limited to;
Investing in sustainable energy.
Improving appliance efficiency.
In each of these cases, by funding these great projects you are either reducing future emissions or helping take future emissions to of the atmosphere.
What Y1 Sport have chosen;
At Y1 we thought very hard about how we wanted to offset and we were very careful to pick a project that aligned with our vision for a lower carbon future.
After much consideration we decided to offset our carbon by purchasing credits from Carbon Tanzania. Carbon Tanzania empower communities and local governments to realise value from the sustainable management of their natural resource. They currently run 3 projects which aim to benefit not only the environment but also societal issues in East Africa. The project we have chosen is the Ntakata Mountains project which protects forests for wildlife, farmers and climate. Our forests are one of the best defences we have against climate change. They remove CO2 from the atmosphere and support biodiversity, but they’re under threat, with the United Nations estimating that 420 million hectares (1 billion acres) of forest have been lost since 1990. We have chosen this project due to the following;
- The United Nations IPCC has stated that forest protection is one of the most cost-effective mitigation strategies that exists for emissions reduction. The project is projecting existing forests that are are sequestering carbon right now, so it’s critical we stop further deforestation. This project protects 216,994ha of forest habitat from being destroyed by slash and burn agriculture.
- The Ntakata Mountains project has a large humanitarian as well as environmental impact by partnering with local communities so that they are fairly compensated, which is sadly not often the case.
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Carbon Tanzania’s approach allows the local community to earn revenues from protecting forest that would otherwise be destroyed, which in turn supports biodiversity and other social benefits.
Offsetting in the future;
Just because we have offset using Carbon Tanzania this year does not mean we are going to indefinitely. Each year, when we come around to offsetting our carbon footprint, we will be sure to evaluate the appropriate offsetting options. We are currently really impressed with the work Carbon Tanzania are doing and they are incredibly effective but thats not to say we won't find a more appropriate offsetting project in the future. When we decide on offsetting for 2022/23 we will share some information on the chosen project.
However, saying this, we really don't want to rely heavily on carbon credits going forward. We don't think carbon credits should be used as an excuse to put off the reforms to our energy generation and usage that are urgently needed. Therefore we will be doing all we can to reduce this impact. Whether this be switching more products over to sustainable materials, such as the case with the ENVO2.1 range, or reducing our reliance on air freight we will be doing all we can to reduce our initial emissions so we can look to reduce reliance on carbon credits in the future.