Whether you’ve been tasked with leading your company’s carbon measurement for the first time or the tenth time, it can be a daunting process. Assembling the tools, expertise, and resources is not easy. Fortunately, as companies make carbon management a priority, carbon measurement is getting more attention than ever before. But even the companies most steeped in this wonky practice benefit from structure, tools, and a helping hand.
Climate Neutral is unique in the carbon measurement space, as a nonprofit that’s motivated by climate impact, not revenue growth. One of our most exciting opportunities for impact is to get more companies measuring their emissions. It’s something that every single company in the world should be doing. Climate change spares no one, and we’re all responsible for it.
Early on, we identified the need for better carbon measurement tools in this space – tools that move climate programs past reporting, toward action. By making carbon measurement more accessible, we’ve helped businesses get their climate programs up and running faster, and in so doing, left them with more time and money to invest directly in removing, avoiding, and reducing carbon emissions.
As a small nonprofit, one of our secret weapons has been our dedicated volunteer team. And our all-star measurement volunteers may be the best example of how passionate and talented people have helped us stretch limited resources so much further.
With the 2022 certification cycle underway, we wanted to introduce you to this year’s Carbon Measurement Volunteer Team. They come from diverse backgrounds and bring a multitude of experiences to the Climate Neutral team, but all of them have professional or academic experience with climate, carbon and nonprofit work. All of our measurement volunteers share a passion for solving the climate crisis, a commitment to our mission, a desire to learn, and a tinge of nerdiness. They work hand-in-hand with our brands throughout measurement, acting as coaches and allies in the most technically challenging step of the certification process. In the past, our volunteers have used their experience to land great jobs in consulting and sustainability leadership. Some of our volunteers have been with us for multiple certification cycles. They make our certification process more successful for everyone involved. We can’t thank them enough for their work, and we’re excited for you to meet them!
Erica Dombro graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in mechanical engineering. During school, her focus was on sustainable engineering and product design. Erica currently works as a Product Development Engineer in the outdoor industry.
Jody Williams-Garcia is an experienced consultant with a focus on developing, implementing and evaluating collaborative solutions within the environmental and health sectors for impact and sustainability. Areas of expertise include market research and analysis, partner identification and negotiation, due diligence, landscape mapping, strategy development, demand generation, user/stakeholder interviews, and project implementation and management. Her projects engage with a wide range of partners, including social entrepreneurs, governments, NGOs, academia, multinational corporations, and microfinance institutions, across five continents. Previous employers include the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, PATH, The Nature Conservancy, and Diversitas/UNESCO.
She is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania with a concentration in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, and holds a MS and BS in Earth Systems from Stanford University. In her free time, she enjoys travel, hiking, volunteering, and spending time with her husband and her two young soccer players.
Arelle brings her extensive experience as an artist and musician to a career in sustainability. She applies the same rigor, passion and discipline required to train as an operatic soprano to her work to advocate for climate justice. A graduate of the Sustainable Innovation MBA program at the University of Vermont, she has recently added GHG accounting to her skillset. She is deeply motivated to support organizations in a process of embedding sustainability and social justice throughout their operations. She is thrilled to be able to collaborate with Climate Neutral and can’t wait to help brands achieve their climate action goals.
Kirby is a design and sustainability professional with over 10 years of product design experience in the fashion and home textile industries. She has a BFA in Fiber arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design and is currently pursuing an MBA in Sustainability at Bard College. Through her studies and experience, she hopes to help brands implement socially and environmentally responsible business practices. In her spare time she enjoys watercolor painting and taking walks with her dog, Sunday.
Chelsea is a design and sustainability professional committed to helping organizations implement circular business practices and reduce their environmental footprint. Her career in product design and development has allowed her to work with every aspect of the supply chain - from materials research, responsible sourcing, designing for circularity, and manufacturing and logistics - all with a sustainable lens. She has a Bachelor's of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and is currently pursuing an MBA in Sustainability at Bard College. In her spare time, Chelsea is a ceramicist and enjoys spending time in the studio.
George is an environmentalist from a small town in northern England, now based out of Whistler, BC. He has a passion for the outdoors and the natural world, and spends free time skiing, biking or climbing as much as possible. His area of expertise is primarily in biogeography with experience in a range of environmental and climate research projects. Through his studies, he has become acutely aware of the need for carbon reduction. By enabling businesses to take responsibility for their carbon footprint, he hopes to have a direct impact on carbon production. He is excited to have the opportunity to work with Climate Neutral and our efforts to decarbonize business to realize this goal.
Jackie is an accounting professional with a passion for environmental sustainability. She has a Masters in Environmental Science from the University of Melbourne, Australia and a Masters in Accounting from UMass - Amherst. Her professional dream is to help organizations integrate environmental sustainability metrics into core decision-making processes as well as reporting those metrics with the same confidence and rigor as other accounting metrics on traditional financial statements. She was excited to see the recent creation of the International Sustainability Standards Board which was a major step towards this integration. In her spare time, she enjoys relaxing with her three dogs and two cats and listening to podcasts, such as Freakonomics, GreenBiz 350, ESG Insider and Heart Wisdom. She practices meditation and mindfulness, which guides her to leading a life of service to our planet with patience and hope.
Kat is passionate about creating regenerative systems that heal people and the planet. Kat's mission is to support organizations with developing and implementing sustainable programs, specifically focused on circular business models for companies to reduce waste and the negative impact on the environment, while implementing regenerative practices into operations.
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In late 2023, we launched a multi-year project to update our certification framework and introduce a new climate label by 2025. Our aim is to create a certification that is both clear and motivating for companies. Over the past 10 months, we engaged with NGOs, certified brands, and other stakeholders, conducted a public survey, and beta-tested with over 20 companies. This process has gathered extensive feedback, which will shape the final 2025 Standard, set to be revealed during Climate Week NYC in late September. This blog post previews 4 key takeaways from the stakeholder process.
Companies need to ramp up their financial contribution to climate solutions, spend those funds on the right things, and publicly disclose this capital allocation to stakeholders. So that begs the question: how should each company determine its next steps? What level of investment is needed to decarbonize?
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At a moment when report after report shows the world is nowhere near its climate goals, the corporate climate movement is slowing down - not speeding up. For the past decade, thousands of companies raced to set ambitious, long-term targets for emissions reduction. But few if any are meeting those targets.
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