This Earth Day, cut through the corporate climate hype

The time of the year when companies start giving out sustainable pledges is around Earth Day. Some of the promises can be misleading. The Verge spoke with experts about how to tell if a climate pledge is legit. They gave advice on what companies should aspire to be if they want to have an impact on climate change.

It's difficult to find stronger corporate climate pledges. Most companies aren't transparent about what they do with the climate commitments. It's not fun to sift through the fine print.

They're not as easy as calories on a package, where we can look at two packages in the grocery store and make a decision.

Some databases can help break things down for consumers. The Climate Disclosure Project is recommended by Dowell. When it comes to their action on climate change, companies with letter grades of A through D are scored. About 12,000 companies agree to participate and share their environmental data.

There is a tool called the Net Zero Tracker that assesses close to 2,000 companies with net zero pledges, and it has information on some companies that haven't made their data available through CDP. The tracker was created by the research labs of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Oxford. They created a helpful bot last month that helps out with environmental pledges.

Photo credit should read JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images

Some people may want to assess a company on their own. There are a few key points to watch for when you're trying to sort out green pledges.

What emissions are they focused on?

You might have recently seen a company set a goal of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions, or announce that it has become carbon neutral.

A net-zero pledge means that the company won't pump out more greenhouse gas emissions than it can either offset or remove from the atmosphere. The commitment should include all greenhouse gas emissions, for example, from carbon dioxide to methane. Carbon neutral commitments can be limited. Even though the term "net zero" is often used, these are more focused on zeroing out only carbon dioxide emissions.

There is more to consider beyond definitions. Carillo Pineda's initiative, a partnership between several environmental organizations, assesses climate pledges from companies, and broad long-term goals like shooting for zero carbon emissions are only the beginning.

There has been an explosion of net-zero commitments, according to Carillo Pineda. He says that it's a good thing, but we need to translate that into tangible targets.

What’s the scope of their pledge?

The next thing to look at is the pledge's size. Take Intel's recent pledge to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2040. It includes emissions from the company's own facilities and vehicles as well as pollution generated from its use of electricity. Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions are called in industry. This is the pollution that companies refer to when they talk about cleaning up their operations, and it is just a small fraction of Intel's total carbon footprint.

Most companies use their products and services in their supply chains, and that's how most of their emissions come from. Scope 3 emissions are called these. Intel's Scope 3 emissions were 10 times larger than its Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

The company says in its net zero announcement that it focuses on partnering with suppliers and customers to take aggressive action to reduce overall emissions.

Intel is not the only one. Less than a third of companies with net zero pledges actually covered all scope 3 emissions according to an analysis by the Net Zero Tracker.

Photo by Jie Zhao/Corbis via Getty Images

Tech giants have taken on the task of cleaning up the entire supply chain. Apple has a commitment to have net-zero climate impact by the year 2030. Over 200 of its suppliers have been pushed to make clean energy products for Apple.

How are they reaching their goals?

Another accounting trick to watch out for is counting up greenhouse gas emissions. It is a balancing act to achieve carbon neutrality or net-zero emissions. Companies can reach that goal by preventing pollution in the first place and trying to keep pollution out of the climate after it has already been released.

It is risky to rely on the later option. Most of the company's emissions should be prevented in the first place. According to Carillo Pineda, an analysis by the International Energy Agency shows that greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by 90 percent in order to keep global warming from reaching catastrophic levels.

Other strategies, like offsetting emissions by planting trees or investing in tech to draw down CO2 might play a role in tackling the remaining pollution. That should be the last resort. It should only be used for heavy industry that can't use renewable energy to fire up a kiln. The ability of offsets to sequester CO2 in the long-term and carbon removal technologies to have a big impact on the climate has yet to be realized. Some environmentalists want ambitious climate pledges to focus on achieving zero emissions.

How fast are they moving?

We have a deadline. The world has warmed more than pre-industrial levels. The consequences of that include more violent weather, intense fire seasons, and shorelines slipping into rising seas. Most nations agree to prevent global warming above 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to the consensus of hundreds of leading climate scientists, the world needs to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century.

It's important to take action early on in the path to the global goal. It will take roughly half a century to drop emissions by 8 percent each year. The world saw a drop in CO2 pollution in 2020 compared to what it saw in 2020. Without a global health crisis, economies will need to speed up their transition to clean energy sources like wind and solar.

Is the company making progress?

It is worth checking back in on how companies are doing after they made pledges years ago. Carillo Pineda says that companies with climate goals need to be held accountable for their progress.

Companies that have made sweeping climate commitments are selling themselves as green even as their greenhouse gas emissions increase. Net-zero carbon emissions for Amazon's operations will be achieved by 2040. The company's carbon footprint increased by 20 percent in 2020. Apple struggled to reduce emissions last year. It relied on offsets and carbon removal to keep its emissions flat.

It's probably not a good sign that a company isn't sharing data on its emissions. Sharing limited data about the environmental impact of specific products without data on what is happening across the entire company is a red flag. Let's say a brand wants to cut down emissions associated with a certain product by 25 percent. If it sells 30 percent more of that product than it did before, it will wipe out the gains.

Drawing conclusions

Now that you have learned how to read a climate pledge like a pro, what can you do as a consumer? Maybe this information can help you decide which brands to support. It's great to do your own homework, but don't get toobogged down by it all.

We should cut down on our consumption in the first place. Companies have made it harder to do that by designing gadgets that are easy to repair. There has been progress on the right to repair laws that could go a long way in helping companies and consumers.

That kind of systemic change is desperately needed to avoid a deeper climate crisis. It will take the right mix of smart policy, concerned consumers, and companies willing to do their part.