Good Clean Love, a manufacturer of intimacy products distributed in retail locations including CVS, Rite-Aid, Safeway and Whole Foods, is going carbon neutral with its flagship Almost Naked product. The company is working with Carbon Credit Capital (CCC) to measure the emissions generated by the manufacture and distribution of the product and donate funds for every lubricant bottle purchased to a project that reduces greenhouse gases by an amount equivalent to that bottle’s carbon footprint.
CCC calculated emissions from Almost Naked's raw materials through manufacturing, processing, packaging, warehousing and shipping, and then assigned a per-unit price for those emissions. Good Clean Love donates that amount, per bottle sold, to GEC Organics Waste Composting Project, an organization which reduces carbon emissions by converting chicken manure, food waste and green waste into organic soil that can reduce fertilizer in agriculture applications. GEC is one of only three US-based carbon offset projects to achieve Gold Standard project verification, one of the highest such standards in the world, CCC says. The standard ensures that carbon credits are real, verifiable and capable of making measurable contributions to sustainable development worldwide.
By adding a carbon neutral stamp to its products, the company demonstrates that "we actually do what we say," Wendy Strgar, CEO of Good Clean Love, told Environmental Leader. "This translates into more trust with our brand and also our consumers can feel good about making even a small impact on how carbon offset effects all of us. One of our core values is that we prioritize environmental responsibility as a caring corporate citizen and hope that we will inspire other B Corps to do the same."
Good Clean Love's other environmentally responsible efforts include "green" packaging, safe product formulations, and PETA-endorsed product testing, the company says.
Sustainability is increasingly becoming a competitive requirement for companies large and small, but small businesses may be at a disadvantage in this area. "Large companies and corporations use the services of top environmental consulting firms to audit their environmental impacts, establish an environmental management system, and set future reduction targets to eventually brand themselves as a green company. This all comes at a very high price, often leaving small businesses in the dust due to their inability to front the cost associated with most methods of sustainable management," according to an article from Carbon Credit Capital. "Unlike large companies, which tend to have full-time sustainability staff and are far more likely to have aggressive sustainability strategies, few small businesses have dedicated capacity around sustainability."
In order to preserve small businesses as a part of the competitive marketplace, it may be that they need a way to get a leg up over large companies in the world of sustainability. The goal of carbon management firms like CCC is to give small businesses this ability in an affordable way, the organization says.
While large businesses tend to be the ones that publicly announce their carbon offset initiatives, these companies account for only 20% of global carbon dioxide emissions - which leaves the other 80% coming from small- and mid-size businesses. If these smaller companies want to make a significant impact - perhaps even a greater cumulative climate impact than the largest emitters in the world - participating in carbon offset programs can help them reach that goal, says Reed Shapiro, director of business development with CCC.
American University is another organization that just announced a carbon neutrality program. AU will offset the carbon emissions caused by students, faculty and staff members who commute to campus by planting and nurturing 650 trees throughout the nation’s capital. The program is facilitated by Urban Offsets.
