What's the point of being carbon literate?
A friend asked me this and it's a good question. Why bother? I think it's really important we all become carbon literate in 2025 and start reducing our carbon emissions right now - here's why....
The climate crisis isn’t a problem for the future - it’s happening now!
In a speech in 2024 UN General Secretary António Guterres said we were “playing Russian roulette with our planet” as he discussed the findings of a report by The World Meteorological Organisation predicting there is an eighty per cent chance that global annual average temperatures will exceed the 1.5 degree limit at least once in the next five years. The climate crisis isn’t a problem for the some time in the distant future - it’s happening right now!
What’s heartbreaking is that, since the Paris Climate Accord was signed in 2015, we’ve actually been increasing our global carbon emissions rather than reducing them. This means climate scientists now believe that, if we want to try to limit global warming to just 1.5 degrees, the total remaining carbon budget we can use is just 200 billion tonnes - that’s it!
To help us understand that Guterres pointed out that we are currently “burning through the budget at reckless speed – spewing out around 40 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year,” which means we could have used the entirety of our remaining carbon budget before 2030!
But what does that mean for me? Or the company I work for? Or my children?
How can I find out what all that really means?
Do you feel like that’s just too much information? It’s too scary and all that jargon is incomprehensible? That’s the problem isn’t it? We’re not all climate scientists - but we do want to do the right thing - and that’s where The Carbon Literacy Project comes in.
Carbon Literacy® training is designed to give you “an awareness of the carbon costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions, on an individual, community and organisational basis.”
It demystifies the scientific terminology and gives you a foundational understanding of what’s causing the climate crisis and what you can do about it.
But shouldn’t we wait for the government to do something?
In the face of the climate crisis, with the news full of ‘natural’ disasters, with our seas full of plastic, and many wildlife populations facing extinction it’s easy for us, as individuals, to feel powerless. It’s just too big a problem for us to solve, so we need to wait for someone else - probably the government - to do something. They will, won’t they?
I’m not sure? My worry is that governments nowadays are much more interested in short term popularity and winning elections than in future generations - and sadly that’s a reflection of what they think matters to us? They don’t think we care about the future either….
So, how do we show governments that we really do care about the climate crisis?
What can we do?
I think most of us underestimate the impact we, as individuals, can have personally and professionally on carbon emissions. In our consumer society how we choose to spend our money and the things we choose to do, or the things we choose not do, are a powerful way to tell governments, and businesses, we want things to change.
According to Commons Earth “our household spending influences 65% of global emissions” so, all our individual choices could add up together to big reductions in carbon emissions.
As Guterres says - do the maths! We could influence around 26 billion tonnes of carbon emissions a year and the reality is that - even if they were taking enough action - governments can’t do this alone. For most of us in the global north reducing emissions and reaching Net Zero by 2050 will involve radically changing how we live our lives.
Reducing emissions by 9% every year between now and 2030, which is what we need to do, will mean all of us doing things differently and that’s why I think becoming carbon literate is so important for everyone.
Where to start?
Do your carbon footprint! The World Wildlife Fund has a brilliant calculator which is a good place to start - the link is here. Just filling in the questionnaire will give you a real sense of the areas where you can start to reduce your personal emissions.
Using the calculator over time I’ve reduced my carbon footprint to 7.3 tonnes (or 86% of the UK average) - but what does that mean? Is that good or bad? What should I be aiming for? If you’re interested in finding out more - there’s a brilliant site called Shrink That Footprint that explores how we can reduce our carbon footprints.
To give you a sense of the challenge we face - Shrink That Footprint say that, even to limit global temperature increases to 2 degrees, our individual carbon budgets would need to shrink from a global average of 5 tonnes in 2010 to just 1.5 tonnes by 2050!!!! The average carbon footprint in the UK is currently 8.4 tonnes.
The good news is there are lots of simple things we can start doing today to reduce our emissions. Reducing the amount of food we waste would make a big difference - in the US uneaten food is responsible for 6% of all US greenhouse gas emissions. Or we could eat a more plant based diet - if everyone in the US ate a vegan diet for one month it could save 105 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
And we could buy fewer new clothes - the Hot or Cool Fashion Report suggests that staying within global carbon budgets would mean all of us buying just 5 new apparel items a year. To contextualise this, a report from ReLondon revealed that the average Londoner bought 48 new items of clothing in 2019 - that would mean an almost 90% reduction for most of us.
Could you do that?
But what about businesses - shouldn’t they be doing more?
The simple answer is yes, and that’s why joining Safia Minney and the team at Fashion Declares last year delivering a bespoke Carbon Literacy Training programme for Fashion and Retail really is my dream job.
The global fashion industry is responsible for somewhere between 4% (Remake) and 10% (EU Commision) of all global carbon emissions, but of the 52 companies assessed in the latest Remake Report 2024 just 4 of them - Burberry, Everlane, H&M Group (Arket, COS, H&M, Monki, Weekday, & Other Stories), and Patagonia - have set long-term targets to reach Net Zero that are approved by the Science Based Targets initiative.
And there are so many things fashion businesses could, and should, be doing right now - from the quick wins like decarbonising their energy supplies and reducing air freight, to mapping their carbon footprints across Scopes 1, 2 & 3 and putting science based targets in place to reach Net Zero and understanding the devastating impact the climate crisis will have on the lives of the people who make our clothes in countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, India and China.
Is this a sale pitch?
Yes! If you’ve read this far, this is a sales pitch! For me, Carbon Literacy Training is a passion project. We need to start reducing the fashion industry’s environmental impact NOW and I think becoming carbon literate is an easy place to start…
Why? Because over the course of just two four hour training sessions and about two hours of personal study you really will gain a deeper understanding of climate change, the environmental impact of the fashion industry, how to calculate the carbon footprint of your business and the tools you need to talk about the climate crisis to your colleagues, friends and family.
What are you waiting for - the link to sign up is here.
This is a passion project! So, if you know someone who works in fashion might be interested in this training please, please, please share this post with them.
What if I don’t work in fashion?
The good news is there are lots of courses running across different sectors and locations - find out more here.
What if I want to find out more?
Please message me if you have any questions or want to find out more.