Swedish outdoor footwear company Icebug has succeeded at implementing the United Nations Climate Neutral Now initiative, making Icebug the first climate positive outdoor footwear brand, said the company.
This initiative involves emission reduction through companies committing to three steps: 1. Measuring greenhouse gas emissions, 2. Reducing emissions as much as possible, and 3. Compensating emissions that can’t be avoided by using UN certified emission reductions (CERs).
Although Icebug has been working on reducing their emissions for several years, they sped up their process and officially became climate positive at the end of February 2019.
“When we made the decision, we plunged into the unknown. We didn’t know if it would cost 20 cents or 20 euros per shoe, but we felt we had to take action. Our prior actions towards emission reduction certainly helped speed up the process, but we want other companies to know that becoming climate positive was easier than we thought,” says David Ekelund, CEO of Icebug.
David Ekelund, CEO of Icebug.
Icebug’s biggest challenge was measuring production emissions. Since there is no simple process to measure emissions, Icebug purchased 30 percent more CERs than necessary to account for the margin of error.
“As a society, we still have a lot of work left to do to reduce emissions. Simply offsetting is not a free card to continue business as usual. We want the maximum effect, and that can only be achieved if others follow suit,” Ekelund stated. “Now it’s time for companies to step up and take responsibility.”
Icebug’s Climate Footprint Facts:
· Icebug is estimating they emitted 3,637 tons of greenhouse gas for fiscal year March 1, 2018 – February 28, 2019.
· Icebug over-compensated an additional 30% to become climate-positive. Icebug offset 4,755 tons of CO2 equivalents through the UN Carbon Offset Platform on February 21, 2019.
