Starting January 2022, we are very excited to be partnering with Ecologi for our carbon offsets and (new) tree planting programmes.
While every organisation has a role in reducing overall emissions by reducing the emissions of their activities, due to fact that the structure of the economy is still regrettably mainly fossil-fuel based and carbon intensive, there is only so much scope for reducing the impact on the climate and environment of our operations. As such, we have offset our own operating carbon emissions for nearly 3 years and for over 2 years, we have also offered clients the option to offset the emissions associated with their Internet usage that is outside our network using our NetZero Broadband programme.
Now, we are taking this one step further. We are now working to be a climate positive organisation. This is our ambition even if it is still hard to do right now. The first thing we are adding to our efforts to repair the impact of our operations, in addition to our offsets, is tree planting.
The first thing to say is that tree planting is no substitute for carbon offsets or reducing our operating emissions. The trees we plant today will not be able to suck up carbon at any scale for 8-10 years and, as any climate scientist will tell you, we don’t need emissions cuts or carbon sequestration in 10 years – we need it right now. But planting trees, responsibly and in harmony with existing ecosystems can do three critical things.
Firstly, it can create the platform for large scale natural carbon sequestration in the future. This is something that is going to required pretty much regardless of what the world can achieve on carbon emission reductions in the short and medium term. The best case scenario is that we will overshoot the targets of the Paris Accords to keep temperature increase to 1.5C and we will need massive carbon sequestration efforts to reduce carbon concentrations in the atmosphere for decades after we get to “net zero”.
Second, tree planting can help restore ecosystems and provide habitat for vulnerable species. These ecosystems can also protect against secondary effects of climate change like wind damage and flooding by protecting land and regulating water flow across the land.
Thirdly, tree planting and management can provide a long term source of income to poor, vulnerable, front-line communities and give them a viable alternative to logging or other destructive practices.
Working with Ecologi, we have the opportunity to fund carbon offsets and plant trees as a continuous and automated process, and with a whole new level of transparency that allows our clients to see every project that their offsets are funding and every new tree that their purchases are paying to plant.
Our vision is to let clients see the tangible, positive activities that they are funding through their choice to use Cerberus Networks, and to connect people to the opportunities to make that positive impact through more and more interactions with us.
Starting in January 2022, we will be reporting our offsets to Ecologi in place of our previous partner, including all those that are generously funded by our clients using our NetZero Broadband programme. and we will be adding a counter showing our aggregate offsets to our web site on our page on Climate Change.
In the near future, we will announce exciting new programmes on how we will link working with Cerberus to carbon offsetting and tree planting activities. We are very excited by the the opportunities that working with Ecologi opens up for us so watch this space!