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Over the last 4 months, we've been sponsoring a lifecycle analysis and building tech that allows Light Phone users to offset the entire carbon footprint of their device at the point of purchase.
Here's how we did it: https://twitter.com/thelightphone/status/1299400090981928962
Here's how we did it: https://twitter.com/thelightphone/status/1299400090981928962
Firstly, you can't mitigate what you can't measure. We worked with @bryanlehrer (who did the lion's share of this work 
) to study the carbon usage of the device at every step of life. That means:
Sourcing -> Production -> Transport -> Usage -> EOL https://link.medium.com/6jT3Lod8j9
) to study the carbon usage of the device at every step of life. That means:Sourcing -> Production -> Transport -> Usage -> EOL https://link.medium.com/6jT3Lod8j9
Historically, LCA studies are laborious, time intensive and expensive - & even then, they're riddled with unknowns. However, there's new research to suggest that a "Lightweight LCA" can be appropriate in a lot of cases. This lowers the bar to carbon foot printing for all!
Bryan goes to great lengths in his study to cross compare different studies with our bill of materials, transport needs, and energy usage patterns to ultimately arrive at a (conservative) carbon footprint of 60.6kg per device (which we round to 61kg). https://twitter.com/thelightphone/status/1299399021816143874
In order to offer a carbon offset at the time of purchase, we partnered with Hudson Carbon (disclaimer: a client of ours) - a working farm and soil research lab in Hudson NY, dedicated to sequestering massive amounts of carbon in their working land. https://www.hudsoncarbon.com/
We chose Hudson Carbon for a lot of reasons. Soil sequestration is a science backed carbon drawdown technique helping farms overhaul traditional farming practices and produce bigger yields year over year.
Hudson Carbon is accredited by Nori: https://nori.com/
Hudson Carbon is accredited by Nori: https://nori.com/
One of the bigger reasons we chose Hudson Carbon is that they charge $100 per metric ton of CO2e. That's about 20x what the rest of the industry charges, and more in line with what an "ethical" costing might be (most offsets are too cheap, and questionably sourced).
Finally, we added a step in the checkout flow that treats carbon offsets with the same visual language as an accessory, as if to say: "if you're buying a phone, you probably want one of these, too!"
(existing Light users can post-purchase at offset here: https://www.thelightphone.com/products/offsets/?variant=night)
(existing Light users can post-purchase at offset here: https://www.thelightphone.com/products/offsets/?variant=night)
We are SO proud of this work, and we'd love to chat to others about helping do the same. If you'd like learn more, check out microsite below, and please reach out!
We'll help guide you along the way!
https://negative.sanctuary.computer/
We'll help guide you along the way!
https://negative.sanctuary.computer/
