Carbon neutral – is it just cosmetic?

If you’re interested in the topic of climate change, you could do worse than grab a copy of this recently published book, What’s The Worst That Could Happen? by Greg Craven. Accurately subtitled ‘A rational response to the climate-change debate’ it has received some glowing reviews. It’s an enlightening read, one we recommend as a very well-balanced resource on the topic.

We mention this because recently we undertook a significant step toward operating as a more sustainable and environmentally conscious business. We attained the status of a Certified Small Enterprise under the CarboNZero(TM) programme.

You can read about what this means, and how it works, in much more detail here. Effectively it means that we can now describe our business as being carbon neutral. This definition applies to our operations, we don’t claim any of our products are carbon neutral, nor do we claim to be experts on the issue of climate change. What we have set out to do is become as informed as we can, and follow our own instincts, which was to take a balanced view.

On balance, we feel it’s important for us to take action…however small.

We pride ourselves on being an ethical company. We believe it’s sensible to balance environment-conscious thinking with actions that are practical, progressive and measurable. CarboNZero certification, in our view, fits these criteria.

Being an SME employing just a handful of staff, our carbon footprint is not huge. But given the urgency and impact of climate change issues, we feel the effort to reduce and offset our emissions is worth making.

Does being carbon-neutral also benefit our marketing? Certainly – in particular it assists in our efforts to grow our export business. Do our customers benefit? Well, we look at it this way: if you choose to buy from a carbon-neutral company such as evolu, it is a small action. But it is also a meaningful one.

It’s many small actions like these that help promote the adoption of more sustainable practices in business generally. And the more consumers show such preferences, the more we will all benefit.