More and more businesses are getting involved in sustainability efforts. This includes cargo businesses and carbon offsetting. A cargo business is any logistics or freight company like MigWay that moves merchandise from one place to another. They also provide storage, packaging, and transportation services. These businesses are starting to take the lead when it comes to sustainability and eliminating their carbon footprints.
A business’s carbon footprint represents the combined amount of carbon emissions and greenhouse gasses that it produces, whether it be direct or indirect. Business processes, product manufacturing, and people involved in the business all contribute to the size of a company’s carbon footprint. Carbon offsetting is just one of the many ways that a business can become more sustainable and eco-friendlier.
Carbon Offsetting
Carbon offsetting is the reduction or elimination of carbon emissions by a person or business through sustainability efforts. This can be done through carbon storage or counterbalancing. Your business can invest in companies that take on different environmental projects to make your business’s carbon footprint smaller. You can also buy carbon reduction credits to make up for your business’s emissions. One credit constitutes the reduction of one metric ton of carbon dioxide. Once your company has enough carbon offset credits to match its carbon footprint, it becomes carbon-neutral.
Carbon Offsetting Projects
-
Energy Efficiency
You can upgrade your business’s traditional systems to ones that use less energy to perform the same function. Invest in smart technology to manage your business’s energy consumption. Make sure that your business has the best deal according to its needs and budget. If you find a better deal at a different company, then you should change suppliers because your energy provider can influence your impact on the environment. The energy efficiency of storage buildings should also be upgraded to reduce your business’s carbon footprint.
-
Renewable Energy
Instead of using energy that was generated with fossil fuels, your business can invest in renewable energy sources. You can install solar panels, miniature wind turbines, and other renewable methods at your business to generate your own energy. Try to look into electric and hybrid vehicles to make deliveries. Another approach is to donate money to places that generate massive amounts of energy at a time. This includes solar, wind, and geothermal energy farms, as well as hydroelectric, biomass, wave, and tidal plants.
-
Water Management
Along with your business using water sparingly and efficiently, it can make use of smart technology to manage water use. Carbon offsetting projects aim to provide clean and drinkable water to communities in need thereof. These communities usually have polluted or contaminated water. When clean water is provided, the contaminated water doesn’t have to be treated with chemicals that harm the environment or boiled over fired that produce smoke. Chemically treated water can end up in clean water sources or the ocean, where it damages the environment.
-
Forestry
A lot of carbon offsetting projects deal with planting trees to reverse the effects of deforestation. Trees use carbon dioxide to create their own food and produce oxygen in the process. Trees are part of offsetting projects that deal with carbon storage. Your business can buy several trees to be planted in order to absorb and store the amount of carbon that it generates during transportation and other processes. Depending on the size of your business, it can be quite a few trees. Your business can also just donate money to combat deforestation.
-
Agriculture
With the technology that is available to us in this age, we can plant crops in such a way that harvests are bigger while waste is a lot less. Seeds are also genetically modified to be more suitable to the current population and its size. Irrigation systems can be handled with smart technology in a way that uses as little water as possible. The farming techniques used are more eco-friendly and produce bigger crops.
-
Aviation
Aeroplanes have started to use smart technology and AI to determine the best routes for fuel efficiency. The designs of aeroplanes also continue to improve so that greenhouse gas emissions are as controlled as possible. Airlines make sure that planes are at maximum capacity before taking off. If a plane is going to emit carbon gasses anyway, then it is better to make sure that the flight is not half full. Your business can pay an extra amount when buying tickets that go towards offsetting projects that deal with sustainability. You can even receive a certificate or record for your efforts.
-
Waste Management
When your business doesn’t manage its waste production and disposal properly, it just continues to contribute to the creation of more landfills. There are carbon offset projects that capture or destroy the methane gasses produced by garbage landfills. The gas can also be used for heating purposes by generating energy from waste. Your business can reuse, reduce, and recycle waste as much as possible, but there will always be landfills endangering the planet.
-
Carbon Sequestration
This is a fancy term for carbon storage. There are two kinds of carbon sequestration: biologic and geologic. In other words, carbon is taken from the atmosphere and stored by plants or in underground coal beds and empty gas and oil reservoirs. When there is too much carbon to be stored naturally, it goes into the atmosphere. Carbon storage can take place naturally, but there are technological methods that can be used to enhance the process. One of the new technological solutions is onboard carbon capture which is done by decarbonising freight and shipping.
Conclusion
This article provided a brief description of what a cargo business is while also touching on carbon footprints. A definition is given of carbon offsetting. Different carbon offsetting project categories were given and explained. These include energy efficiency, renewable energy, water management, forestry, agriculture, aviation, waste management, and carbon sequestration. These are just some of the ways that cargo businesses can lead in carbon offset efforts. Your business can also become involved in carbon offsetting projects in communities to help others reduce their carbon footprints.