Episode 52: What is the difference between Carbon Neutral and Net Zero Carbon?

Carbon, Carbon Offsetting, Carbon Neutral, Net Zero Carbon, Sustainable sourcing, fashion.

Welcome to the Fashion Unearthed podcast. If you need help navigating the fashion industry sustainably, you have come to the right place. I'm your host Belinda Humphrey and my hope is to simplify the fashion industry so that businesses can make the best decisions for people, planet and product.

Hello, and welcome to episode 52 of the Fashion Unearthed podcast. I feel like I should have like a little applause soundbite in here to celebrate one full year of weekly podcasts. Like most things, I just decided one day that I would do a podcast, a way to connect with people that's not on social media. And thankfully, I came across My Daily Business Coaches online course about how to start a podcast, which I don't think I would have gotten this far without it, to be honest. Fiona has got a very successful podcast herself. So I've found it to be just a really practical and simple guide on what to plan and what to expect, really.

And apparently only 1/3 of podcasts ever produced make more than 10 episodes. So I feel like I'm in this exclusive club to some degree and to make it to this point I really should celebrate. If you have listened and liked it or learnt something, I would love it if you could just hit the stars or even write a brief review if you've got a few more minutes, that really does help helps to get the podcast out there too. That being said, I'm planning to change the frequency to fortnightly instead of weekly, still released on a Tuesday, but I want to incorporate some interviews for the rest of the year, which I'm really looking forward to and they do take a bit more time. Plus, I think it will be nice for the audience, you guys to not just keep hearing my voice. Another reason is that I want to produce more content to go out to email subscribers. So I need to shift a little bit of where I'm spending my time. But I actually do mostly enjoy rabbiting on each week about new topics. So don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. There will still be podcasts popping up with me just talking too. And obviously a huge thank you to everyone who listens, shares reviews, I love watching the downloads and seeing all the random places that show up on a little map on the back end.

So on to today's episode, carbon is such a hot topic at the moment. And I watched a really interesting show on ABC called Carbon: The unauthorised biography and as usual, I'll put a link in the show notes for it. It's got a bit of a weird storyline where a narrator does a voiceover as if a carbon atom is a person. But that aside, I wanted to talk about it briefly because it helps explain why it's not a carbon problem, per se. It's not so much about the actual carbon more about where it is. And some interesting points that I took away from that was that 1/5 of our body is made up of carbon. And 90% of everything we see is made of carbon as well. It likes to bond with everything and creates life as we know it. Without carbon, we wouldn't exist. The problem comes when there's too much of it in the atmosphere instead of in the soil. So when we're talking about carbon, remember that it's where it is that's the problem.

Which brings me to the two definitions I wanted to talk about today, carbon neutral and net zero carbon. Essentially, to be carbon neutral, you have to calculate your carbon emissions and then offset or balance out that amount. By doing things like planting trees. It's expected as well that you have a strategy to reduce those emissions in your organisation not just offset them.

For net zero carbon, this means that the necessary changes have been made to reduce emissions to the lowest possible amounts. And if there are emissions that remain after all available reduction initiatives have been implemented, then offsetting is used as a last resort. Now I'm obviously not a scientist. So this description is a simplified one to just keep in mind when you're thinking about carbon in your organisation, or even when you are purchasing and reading through businesses, environmental commitments, so you can maybe decipher it a little bit better.

Again, a huge thank you to everyone who's listened so far, life is so busy and the fact that you choose to spend some time listening to this podcast and me just blows me away. So thank you. As usual, you can get in touch on Instagram at @belindahumphrey_if you have discovered something on today's podcast or you just want to say hi, you can also email me at info@belindahumphrey.com. And as always, you'll find the show notes and any links on the website to in the podcast section. Thanks so much for listening. See you next time.

Thanks for listening to the Fashion Unearthed podcast. If you want to get in touch head over to belindahumphrey.com or you can find me on Instagram @belindahumphrey_

Disclaimer: Whilst every effort is made to ensure that information is accurate at the time of recording, much like the fashion industry itself, this information may change.