The Great Carbon Distraction
Why the Allbirds x Adidas collaboration isn’t all it seems.
That we are in an era of anthropogenic climate change is an unarguable truth. Ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica show that the Earth’s climate is warming faster and at higher temperatures than ever before in history.
As we continue to break record temperatures around the globe, extreme events predicted for decades are no longer a figment of our imaginary future. They are literally happening around us.
Wildfires, flooding, hurricanes and typhoons, epidemics, ecological system collapse. It’s not necessary to predict the consequences of inaction anymore.
The call to action has been issued and institutions around the world have spent many years mobilising around it. From the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement — it has been a clear prerogative of Government’s for many years, albeit an often action-poor political bargaining chip.
As climate anxiety grew, organisations initially rushed to absolve guilt over consumption habits by offering to ‘offset’ carbon impacts. Aptly labelled the ‘carbon-offset gold rush’ by the FT in 2015.
The general concept of the initiative being the calculation of estimated emissions of certain practices and purchase of carbon credits from projects that remove greenhouse gases elsewhere.
Prevalent in most industries now, even Shell offers the option to ‘drive carbon neutral’ for the small price of simply using their ‘Shell Card’ as they, and I quote; ‘take care of the rest’.
As Shell help you erase your ‘unavoidable carbon emissions through the purchase of carbon credits from a portfolio of carefully chosen nature-based projects’, they continue to make billions whilst in court for minimising taxes, covering up corporate negligence and lobbying against climate action.
Unsurprisingly, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated the fossil fuel industry in 2018 to be 89% of total global emissions.
And in Australia, where mining accounts for over half its total exports, the Federal Government continues to allow the destruction of vulnerable and endangered species in plain site for the exchange for environmental offsets.
Offsets that can never and will never be able to provide a like-for-like replacement of what is lost. That are easily manipulated, corruptible and malleable to the economic or political order of the day.
So we already see deep flaws in the carbon claim and offset market. All without scratching the surface of the industry’s less quantifiable impacts on ecosystem services, human health and democratic freedoms.
Enter the consumer products industry. Where the combination of complex, decentralised (un-owned), global supply chains and a desire for transparency has created an epidemic of greenwashing.
More than ever, Brands are capitalising on ‘sustainable marketing’ to increase appeal and drive purchasing. Much of it enabled through ‘offsetting’ and the legitimacy of which remains ungoverned and uncontrolled.
No more so than in the carbon impact space: from ‘climate positive’ burgers to ‘carbon negative’ vodka, ‘carbon neutral’ shipping options to ‘zero carbon’ coffee, these phrases now completely dominate mainstream marketing.
There is no doubt the terminology can help yield actual change by encouraging business to be more proactive, but in an industry where the trajectory remains net destructive, what does it really mean?
..and with the market showing consumers are actually buying these products, is it all legitimate or just a really convincing red herring? Are carbon claims really the solution to the future we want and need?
With the recent collaboration between footwear giants Adidas and Allbirds hitting the front-page news around the world, joining forces to make ‘the worlds lowest carbon impact shoe’, should we be celebrating or challenging the structure that guarantees its success?
My name is Emma Foster-Geering & I’ve spent 20 years operating within the system.
I have worked within big corporates; from Chevron and BHP Billiton, to Primark and Burberry. There isn’t a Boardroom on this planet that wouldn’t kick me out for knowing what I know about their corporate sustainability smokescreen tactics.
Today I work with small challenger Brands to embed sustainability into corporate culture and practices from the start, and use my voice to agitate the system.
In all these years I’m still yet to get to the bottom of this topic, but this is what I’ve learnt (and am struggling to find experts that disagree with) so far:
Carbon is a misleading term used to mean greenhouse gas emissions.
The glossary of terms used to guide political negotiations on climate action is complicated, to say the least: a perilous minefield of people often saying the same thing but with different meaning. As a wise old Greek man once said ‘The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms’.
Understanding the international community’s goal of limiting warming below 2°C above pre-industrial levels is simple enough; working out how to actually do that requires nothing short of a PhD.
An insanely difficult situation to comprehend in an age where public communications are focused almost entirely on reductive content which makes things ‘digestible’ for the generic consumer.
In short, a greenhouse gas (GHG) is any gas in the atmosphere which absorbs heat; the main one’s being water vapour (H20), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N20) and ozone.
The global warming potential (or GWP) of a GHG indicates the amount of warming a gas causes over a given period of time. Important, as for example, methane causes 25 times higher GWP than CO2.
As the most dominant GHG emitted by human activities, ‘carbon’ (carbon dioxide/CO2) is frequently used as shorthand for all GHGs. Frequently leading to misleading global warming claims.
The term ‘carbon’ by itself is actually a chemical element that exists in many different materials. An essential building block of life in humans, animals, plants, trees and soils; it is clearly not the enemy.
The more we see shorthand terms such as ‘carbon accounting’ and ‘low carbon economy’, although repeatedly used as proxies for greenhouse gases, the more our collective understanding shifts farther away from the science and from meaningful action to address the actual causes of the climate crisis.
This kind of simplification can be incredibly harmful and has the potential to undermine climate action. As the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Norway says ‘the focus becomes on one number, whatever that number is.’ Allowing political flexibility that just doesn’t exist.
One might argue that whether or not the numbers are right is irrelevant when the overriding message is to just focus on meaningful action to stop emitting GHG emissions into the atmosphere in the first place.
Why are Adidas and Allbirds focused on carbon?
And why, in the fashion industry especially, where the majority of GHG emissions are in extremely complicated and un-owned manufacturing and logistics supply chains, aren’t we focusing on real collective action?
This is where the recent Allbirds x Adidas collaboration is exciting. The fact that the second biggest player teams up with a rising star, both putting huge effort into sustainability in their own ways, is serious progress.
But why, in an industry that is absolutely flooded to the brim with multi-stakeholder standards and initiatives, are they doing their own thing? And why, when the footwear industry is arguably more damaging to our climate in toxic chemical, plastic and material waste issues, is it focused on ‘carbon’?
It surely couldn’t be because focusing on the single most galvanising issue in the public’s mind is really clever marketing that boosts sales without requiring any real system change?
Or perhaps it’s because there’s 15+ years of political and business weight behind the topic now and it’s imperative for us to bear a consistent course for any chance of preventing climate Armageddon?
Either way, the new language of carbon is critical to making sure we are taking action, the right way. Which brings us on to our next point, where measuring and taking action can break down.
Carbon impact calculations rely (a lot) on scientifically inaccurate data.
Although no universally accepted definition exists, the general concept of carbon neutrality involves achieving zero net emissions associated within an organisation, product, service or process.
The simplest way of claiming a zero emissions target is usually through a combination of internal emission reductions for example through energy efficiency measures, and external carbon offsetting.
In the fashion industry, arguably the most rigorous and legitimate method of setting ‘carbon’ targets is through the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTI), a partnership between the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), UN Global Compact, the World Resources Institute (WRI) and WWF.
In truth there are a raft of solution providers in this space, Allbirds for example use an LCA — based tool which you can read about on their website but is curiously difficult to find the 3rd party expert and data sources for.
Solution providers in this space would probably be the first to insist offsetting isn’t likely to move the needle on climate change and should be a last resort. Although, some maintain it is ‘better than doing nothing’, it is literally in this industry’s business interests to increase offset demand.
We are using a credit card that has not only maxed out, but continues to be propped up on false credit.
I recently had someone who works for a very legitimate carbon offset trading company tell me that over 95% of the carbon market is traded away. Essentially disappears. Never makes it to the projects where the debt is to be repaid, or worse, it makes it and is whittled away on fake or failing projects.
An incredibly difficult figure to substantiate, but as my email, LinkedIn and personal phone number is harassed hundreds of times a week with cold sales plugs for these initiatives, not hard to believe.
And even if that is only half true it is still shocking.
Not to mention you’d be hard pressed to find an academic in this space that does not acknowledge the carbon market’s weak regulation and implementation, fraud and major legitimacy issues.
It’s a much bigger problem than just carbon.
The fashion industry has an extensive list of standards and certifications that are promoted to measure and report on environmental and social impacts.
From the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s HIGG Index portfolio, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, GRI Standards Suite, the ZDHC Foundation, Bluesign, AFFIRM, Textile Exchange’s sustainable material certifications, Oeko-tex product and factory accreditations, the Ethical Trade Initiative, Fair Trade, Fair Wear Foundation, European and UK Clothing Action Plans, UN Climate Charter, Better Cotton Initiative, Leather Working Group, Vegan Certifications and many, many more.
A sustainability person or team’s job these days features a lot of asking for and manipulation of information from stakeholders and not a lot of actualisation of solutions to escalating problems.
Between the total deluge of data demands and failure of entirely overhyped fix-all technological solutions for engaging with stakeholders to exchange that data (a topic for another day) it’s not hard to believe why Brand’s rely on poor-quality secondary data to measure and make impact claims.
Claims that not only the ‘consumer’ is pressuring the Brands to make, but internal teams pressure the sustainability experts to create, and who ironically feel the most uncomfortable to generate.
The Sustainable Apparel Coalitions Materials Sustainability Index for example, is widely known to contain extremely poor quality data. Research papers over 5 years old. Generic reports on the environmental impact of cotton over polyester. Tainted by information bias and situational inflexibility.
The alternative is a 100% privatised database of slightly better, but still not accurate life-cycle-analysis studies owned by the organisation QUANTIS and charged out to the highest bidder.
This all being what we use to educate the future designers of tomorrow.
Enabling us to make decisions on behalf of faceless (but by no means invisible) supply chains about what’s good and what’s not.
The problem is; not only do LCA’s detract us from what’s really needed; that being holistic, systems-thinking, but without good-quality primary data from supply chains; are fundamentally flawed.
Recent studies from Cornell University shows that many of the sustainability claims which land big brands in the (negative) spotlight very much still exist. With a lot of the information given to auditors that brands pay to audit their supplier factories patently inaccurate, particularly in China and India.
To put that into perspective, more than half of the 31,652 factory audits conducted in those two countries over a seven-year period were based on falsified or unreliable data.
Data which informs the environmental impact calculations that are used by the solution providers and the Brands to make and set the ‘carbon’ and other sustainability targets and claims they are making.
Again, much of it done from the air-conditioned offices of the Brand headquarters based in the developed world, without having to engage with or do any of the heavy lifting expected of suppliers.
Anyone who has spent time in the ‘back end’ of the fashion industry, where the products are actually made, knows that international relationships are king. Any efforts to progress environmental and social issues require deep and extensive relationship building — efforts which rarely ever work if you don’t respect the language and culture of the supplier and their employees.
Does it have to be so complicated?
With the average cost of setting ‘carbon’ targets reaching into the tens of thousands of dollars, it’s not hard to see why Brands want to go public with their efforts in exchange for commercial gains.
A perhaps slightly naive question for me continues to be, why are we spending so much time on expensive, complicated mathematical models and not just focusing on shifting to renewable energy?
With the caveat of always striving to reduce energy consumption first (an easy return-on-investment) wouldn’t it be easier and ultimately more impactful for us to focus on assisting industrial parks which dominate manufacturing supply chains, to transition their factory energy sources or even the grid?
As the plethora of international incentives for low or no interest loans or philanthropic investment reaches new heights, wouldn’t this focus incentivise entire supply chains to eliminate toxic emissions?
From what I’ve seen so far, the two biggest barriers to this are (radical) supply chain transparency and true collaboration. Both also barriers to a Brand’s core interest; making profits.
Even in a business such as the one I work with, Vivobarefoot, where we have 5 full-time employees dedicated to sustainability, supply chain transparency efforts are extremely limited in the Vietnamese footwear industry and collaboration efforts fail before they even start thanks to an epidemic of intellectual property rights and marketable moments land grabbing.
A deeply rooted problem in the fashion-industry, that only a few innovative brands such as PANGAIA are intent on overcoming to achieve broad and deep market penetration of sustainability solutions.
So can we even say that the collaboration between Adidas and Allbirds with a focus on Carbon scoring is a positive step forward?
My personal opinion is that, carbon impact claims are a dangerous distraction from addressing the climate crisis.
Unlike climate change and global warming, biodiversity has been found to follow a more progressive decline of pollination services, water quality, plant biomass, and many other critical functions for life.
Business decisions that are propped up on Political agenda’s focused on GDP growth, and science that shows we can ‘afford’ to lose species and ecosystem quality, facilitate continued biodiversity loss.
Biodiversity even has, arguably, a more immediate threat. Because as Johan Rockstrom, the Executive Director for the Stockholm Resilience Centre says ‘it is the variable that operates under the hood of the planetary system that influences the stability of our climate, ozone layer and oceans.’
Outside of scientific debate, our continued destruction of irreplaceable natural ecosystems continues on an epic scale. From the mountains of litter that pile up at the local park and end up in our waterways on a sunny weekend, to the logging and land clearance of our precious forests.
Why, if addressing climate change requires rapid decarbonisation through improved environmental stewardship of peatlands, mangroves, forest and marshes, aren’t we talking about it more anyway?
Even carbon focused institutions recognise that climate change is a symptom the systemic ecological problem of natural resource depletion and pollution.
The real solution to our crisis is not an isolated problem.
So why do we have tunnel vision for ‘carbon’?
Is it because systems thinking is too far beyond the capacity of business and policy makers?
Three years ago, Vivobarefoot worked with DuPont to calculate the ‘carbon’ impact of footwear materials made from plant based materials, but soon realised that this approach wasn’t going to fix many problems. That to really look after the health of people ‘and’ the natural world, we needed to focus on a holistic, systems-based approach to regeneration and restoration, that although extremely challenging to sell at point of sale, is the right thing to do.
But for Allbirds, and other Brands, sustainable success has come from focussing on isolated issues. Which is perhaps why the Founder of Allbirds insists that ‘Being a sustainable business is not that hard’.
I couldn’t disagree more and I believe this statement undermines the millions of lives around the world suffering from the deeply entrenched environmental and social issues brought about by the fashion and footwear industry.
With the most recent report by IPBES finding around 1 million animal and plant species threatened with extinction and more than a third of the world’s land surface and nearly 75% of freshwater resources now devoted to livestock production, I ask, is this the future we are planning to leave behind to future generations?
In Zwillinger’s defence (the co-founder of Allbirds), he is playing a most important role in advocating for necessary policy and culture change around the topic. Taking bold action such as in their exposure of Amazon’s copying of its shoe design but not its sustainability practices.
With great exposure comes great responsibility though, which means its fair game to challenge their focus on offsetting the ‘carbon’ impact of their product components and presumed oversight on other issues.
After all, the entire premise of sustainability marketing is to position a brand as an active figure in a single sustainability issue. To create a reason why consumers should choose you over another competitor.
So one cannot be faulted for thinking that is exactly what has happened.
It is absolutely not an option for Brand’s to ignore sustainability anymore. But as we see time and time again, how possible it is to spread a sustainability message that consumers believe without any real substance, it’s important to take into account those that question the legitimacy of those claims.
Not to discourage progress. Not to destroy hope or spread hate. But to ensure we don’t take these things at face value.
The future we want and need will be created by systemic change, collective action and cooperation (willing or not). Not just with the motivated (and privileged) enough to make changes by themselves.
It will be created by a tipping point of people taking action, about the current situation. Action to demand legislation to shift the most destructive industries. Not least the fashion industry, which remains so badly unregulated that it’s still perfectly legal to use a variety of chemicals known to cause cancer and worse; for the sake of some seriously questionable commercial gains.
Legislation, that can only be put in place if we are honest about the challenges as much as we are about the positive ‘sustainability’ stories.
A typical footwear product can have over 100 components. Each single component a web of factories. From extraction and extrusion, to spinning and weaving, dyeing, washing, cutting, construction — at best, a typical supply chain in this industry will have no less than 10 different factories.
Point is, just because a product has ‘carbon’ impact labelling, doesn’t guarantee proper stewardship.
Something we became all too aware of in the recent COVID-19 crisis, as suppliers stepped up for perhaps the first time in history and made it clear what was really happening on the ground.
Until we collectively embrace radical transparency, Brands and Suppliers alike, the consumer won’t know better and therefore won’t demand any different from the Brand and change will not come.
Ultimately proliferated by carbon language which has become so ubiquitously acceptable that without interrogation and rigour, it’s rapidly becoming a major part of the problem.
Carbon counting is one part of the system and must not exist in isolation without all the other hygiene factors in place.
Adidas and Allbirds have done more than most to make their supply chains transparent and replace toxic materials in their supply chains. And I don’t want to take anything away from the very earnest efforts both companies are making as these two companies are arguably part of the solution not the largest problem. I’m just taking issue at the headline grabbing carbon counting and the situation that sits in the dark behind it.
Reversing our impact on our environment is a very long-term journey.
Until we’re simply meeting the environmental, health and safety laws in every factory and using basic industry standards, it would be wise to avoid catch-all product labels that suggest otherwise.
Perhaps Adidas will share it’s world-class environmental programme with Allbirds in this collaboration to produce the world’s most shining example of a polished footwear supply chain?
Even so, the fundamental question still remains; how can millions more shoes be sustainable? What are they sustaining? And is this partnership sustaining an entire industry, or just themselves?
Whilst we are so starved of real progress in this industry it is certainly one to celebrate. But we should remember the macro-situation and ask, is this really a front-page solution to our climate crisis? And is it not the responsibility of leaders like Adidas to educate and lead around the systemic challenges faced by the footwear industry and broaden the scope to lay out many vital issues around biodiversity and pollution rather than just headlining on carbon? All good to make things as simple as possible for the consumer, but not simpler.
But I’ve been challenged to leave this article on a solution. So here’s to a future of regenerative agricultural supply chains and super simple automated and hand-made, locally produced products made from polymers derived from 3rd or 4th generation feedstocks in an industry that plays the game together. But that’s a story for another day!
Here’s some references:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/indicators.php
https://www.ft.com/content/e2000050-0c7f-11ea-bb52-34c8d9dc6d84
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-02-16/bushfire-wildlife-extinction-offsets/9622980
https://blog.globalwebindex.com/marketing/sustainable-brands/
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/3/5/21155020/companies-carbon-neutral-climate-positive
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/3/5/21155020/companies-carbon-neutral-climate-positive
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17583004.2014.990679
https://cornell.app.box.com/s/08w9luxrfne7ttky7bzh46akyataw3g3
materials-through-to-products/#15ff2e88732f
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0738-8?proof=true1
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/fashion%E2%80%AFbrands-undermining%E2%80%AFcovid-19-response-putting-workersand-suppliers-at-risk%E2%80%AF
