One quick way I’m reducing my environmental impact in 2019.
Over the past couple of months, we’ve been making environmental resolutions that would benefit our planet and this year many of us are aiming to take action.
But I have to admit, I have an uncomfortable relationship with the environment and the outsized impact I have on it; I take way too many flights for work and pleasure, don’t buy locally as much as I would like, and buy too many items new which could easily be bought second-hand. After a quick WWF survey, I was dismayed to find out that my climate impact was over 200% of the target… despite being vegetarian!
In my particular case, heavy travel via airplane was the biggest culprit in my environmental impact. In search of ways to mitigate this, I wanted to share some helpful thoughts from our friend Rebeca Cipollitti at Climate Reality:
…I encourage you to consider purchasing carbon offsets. There are multiple resources available to calculate your footprint, such as these by WWFor The Nature Conservancy. Carbon offsets are a great way to balance your personal carbon footprint by contributing to projects that work to reduce overall emissions. Do you travel a lot for work? Consider asking your workplace to implement a carbon offset program for business travel.
Remember to do your research on high-quality carbon offsets. A large portion of the carbon offset market is unregulated. This articleby the Natural Resources Defense Council clearly outlines the kinds of guarantees your offset promise should feature, including verification, permanence, and enforcement. For example, the Gold Standardhas a list of projects that you can contribute to, with prices broken out per ton.
While carbon offsets are a great step in taking responsibility for your personal impact on our planet, the best thing you can do is work to reduce your carbon emissions in the first place.
Heeding Rebeca’s words, at the minimum, I’m going to make a commitment to purchase Gold Standard carbon offsets for all flights that I take and will doubly make an effort to reduce the amount of flights I take in the first place. To start, I found this handy calculator to determine the amount of amount of CO2e I am producing and will use this as the basis for my carbon offset purchases.
This, for me, seems like a reasonable first step in cleaning up my environmental misdeeds and I would love to hear from you, what environmental commitments are you making for 2019?
At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2019, the Global Shapers Community is launching a pledge to mobilize 1 million individuals, communities, businesses, politicians and world leaders to take climate action. I’ve signed the pledge to show our community is leading the way. If you’re a Shaper, join me by taking the 2-minute pledge (and share it with your hub): www.wef.ch/climate-pledge
About the Author
Joe Vasquez is a Co-Director at Runway Innovation, a leading startup incubator and corporate innovation lab in San Francisco. He is also a founder of the Michelson Runway Edtech Accelerator and a Global Shaper for the World Economic Forum. To date, Michelson Runway, an initiative of Runway, has invested in 18 leading education technology startups. Before joining Runway, Joe led data strategy at Enuma, an education technology company that builds engaging math games for elementary students with special needs serving over four million worldwide.
Joe was recently named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for his work in education. He was also named to the 40 Under 40: Tech Diversity — Silicon Valley list.
