Littorary Goes Climate Neutral
By Romero Halloway
Littorary has committed to Climate Neutral certification, ensuring that the entirety of our business, including our supply chain, will be in compliance with net-zero emissions goals from the outset.
Climate Neutral is the foremost certifier of businesses seeking to understand, offset, and ultimately reduce their carbon emissions. A nonprofit like Climate Neutral is crucial to small startup companies like Littorary because we do not have the institutional capacity to perform carbon emissions calculations ourselves. Littorary will better understand the carbon emissions our company generates running our business thanks to the tools provided by Climate Neutral.
What will help with reducing our carbon emissions is Climate Neutral’s system of carbon offsets. The system operates through a marketplace consisting of third-party verified projects that generate carbon credits, which can be purchased to help offset carbon emissions generated by business activities like manufacturing or transportation.
For instance, if Littorary generates a certain amount of carbon emissions per year through its manufacturing process, we can offset those emissions by funding a project that helps conserve an at-risk forest that can function as a carbon sink, contribute to the construction of a renewable energy project like a wind farm, or contribute toward technologies that pull greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.
It is different from a cap and trade scenario, where companies are allowed to emit a certain amount of pollution and then buy allowances from other companies significantly under their cap. It also differs from a carbon tax where a fee is imposed per the amount of carbon used by a given company.
“We envision a world where all consumers have the ability to choose brands that take responsibility for their carbon emissions, and all brands have the tools to do so,” Climate Neutral says in their mission statement.
Littorary agrees.
While many companies have touted their goals to become carbon neutral by a set date, in many cases far off, we choose to conform to that goal immediately.
Brands like Cold Brew Club, Friends of Tea, Kickstarter, Modern Adventure, Nuun, Numi Organic Tea, Vahdam Teas, and Zero Carbon Coffee are just a few companies that have completed the Climate Neutral Certification for 2019. They have measured and offset a combined 228,000 tonnes of carbon in 2019 alone. In 2020 REI, Muir, Nimble, Hikers Brew Coffee, and more have committed to becoming Climate Neutral Certified.
We are excited to join the ranks.
As a company, Littorary is committed to offsetting all our carbon emissions generated in 2021. We will then undergo the process of certifying the calculations and we anticipate having the consumer-facing certification early next year.
Controlling carbon emissions is so important to Littorary because reducing plastic pollution is a primary impetus for the creation of our product and our company. Plastic production not only presents a scourge for the ocean, the shorelines, beaches and waterways of our beautiful globe, but also plastics are petroleum-based and extremely greenhouse gas intensive to produce.
It’s why we have supported legislation aimed at introducing clean air requirements for plastic production plants.
We believe our specific role is to offer an alternative to plastic, particularly as it applies to food and beverage consumption. However, the creation of that alternative will create carbon emissions in manufacturing, transportation, and other areas of our business.
We are committed to offsetting those emissions while persistently and rigorously exploring ways to reduce those emissions.
We believe technology and design innovations can revolutionize how Americans and the world consume products in concert with the health of the environment. Please stay tuned to our website, blog, and upcoming Kickstarter page as we unveil a product fully capable of providing the convenience and sustainability that will consign the concept of disposable plastics to the garbage heap of history.