Why is it all taking so long? That just doesn’t get into our heads! Even startups who want to produce green are desperate at how difficult it is to become climate neutral. The most famous presenter in Germany is now also an eco-founder – and is now really puking himself up.
We’re in the shit. Sorry for the choice of words, but I don’t want to gloss over anything: The climate catastrophe has long since arrived. You know, I know, the new government knows. And even if everyone is in a total mood of optimism after the elections, I am concerned that in a few weeks we will be exactly where we started. I saw a post by the “Tagesschau” on Instagram in which climate researchers say: “Hey, we’re running into a catastrophe” (they didn’t literally say “Ey”, but you know what I mean). The point is: the post was from 1994. Nineteen Hundred Ninety-Four! That was 27 years ago. And even then it was nothing new. What have we been doing all this time?
Until the water is on our necks
Maybe this picture will help: We are standing in the largest swimming pool we can imagine. There is a hose in it, and water runs in very slowly. We can’t swim, but we all keep splashing around. Die? Could happen, but not now, look, the water goes all the way to the knee. As long as we can still feel the ground under our feet, we are safe. At some point we stand on tiptoe, and then suddenly the floor is missing, and we realize: Ui, the edge of the pool is quite a long way away. What are we going to do now?!
Sure, we could have left the pool when someone put the hose in, we could have pulled it out, we could even have learned to swim. But nope, splashing around was so nice. And now? In all honesty, we are sitting here and we are fully vigorously deciding on agreements at European level such as: climate neutrality by 2050. That’s going to take even more time than since the “Tagesschau” contribution! That doesn’t get into my head: Why is it all taking so long?
Exploitation is still common
Why are companies still allowed to operate in such a way that people on the other end of the world are exploited? How can it be that, as an entrepreneur, I want to make my own chocolate and am told: “But you, that with less packaging waste will unfortunately not work.” Or: “Sorry, but we cannot guarantee 100 percent without slave labor.” I mean, it’s absurd if you know what a cocoa bean costs in West Africa and how much a bar of chocolate here. You ask yourself: How can anyone make money with it? But money is made with it, it just doesn’t end up with the farmers. Why doesn’t something happen much faster?
The sock without a footprint
For a second example of this kind, please follow me briefly to my sock factory. Yes – sock factory. I launched the sock brand Cheerio * because I wanted to try to produce climate-neutral textiles. And I thought to myself: firstly, socks are the smallest piece of fabric, and secondly, everyone needs them. “The sock without a footprint!” – I fell in love with this claim. We designed the logo, cardboard boxes and hangtags (those things that serve as hooks in the store), and made sure everything was clean and made of paper. We used inks that don’t pollute the floor if the paper doesn’t end up in the recycling process, and, and, and. And of course we designed and produced socks. So far so beautiful. But not climate-neutral.
Because unfortunately I have to pull this tooth from you – and honestly also from myself -: The production of things is never climate-neutral, at least not on an industrial scale. An apple tree produces apples in a climate-neutral way, yes. But even with bio-electricity, eco-friendly paper and an office heating system based solely on warm thoughts, every production process first of all consumes energy and raw materials. So that’s on the negative side of the balance sheet. Even in 2021 you will not be able to produce a sock that has a balanced balance at the moment of production. Unless maybe you have a sheep in the garden that you shear by hand and then knit the sock yourself from the wool (by the way, I would kind of envy you for that, but I need a lot of socks for Cheerio * and I am very bad at knitting).
In any case, climate debts always arise in every production. So in order to deposit something on the positive side, we have to do something that saves greenhouse gases. No problem at all, I thought at the time, after all there are air freight companies who advertise that they are climate-neutral – how difficult should that be for socks? The answer is: it’s not just difficult. It is in fact impossible! Yes, in 2021.
Are trees really the solution?
Sure, there is the classic: planting trees. You can do that, after all, a tree also binds CO2 from the air in the course of its life. But you probably noticed the operational term “in the course of his life” right away. Because the tree does not offset our climate debts until decades AFTER it was planted! I’m retired! That’s not my idea of neutral. I want someone who buys a pair of socks not to contribute to climate change. Especially since – a little fun fact – the German forest areas are already included in the country’s climate balance. That means: If you plant a tree here and subtract that from, say, your sock production, then you double the tree and screw yourself.
Companies have to pay for their carbon footprint. But so little that it is not worth investing in clean technology instead.
But how do all the other companies do it, you ask yourself? Those who advertise with “climate neutral”? By my standards: not at all. They usually buy certificates that are backed by organizations that save CO2, for example by making solar stoves available to people in less developed regions of the world. That’s legitimate, but that wasn’t enough for me either. So, next step: We wrote to organizations that should help us not only calculate our footprint with supply chains and everything that goes with them, but also point out ways in which we can really become climate neutral. There was then something like a classification that went from bronze to platinum status, and platinum meant that we would even be climate positive because we save more greenhouse gases than we emit.
That’s what I wanted! I called immediately, and when I asked: “What does platinum status cost?” it said: “The world is not that far yet.” Then I wanted gold status, and that didn’t work either. In other words, exactly what I described above comes into play here: There are no technical developments that can really zero production. Why? Because innovations were not promoted – because it is much easier for companies to buy certificates than to become really climate-neutral. The CO2 certificate trading in the EU works like this: companies have to pay for their CO2 emissions, but so little that it is usually not worthwhile to invest in better, cleaner technology instead, which one would have to invent first. Certificates trading is not only of little help when it comes to saving CO2, it also prevents people from really investing in research into better technology. It is to be crazy!
In the end, we teamed up with the German Wildlife Foundation because they said that our forest is not only no longer intact, it is also not able to withstand the climate crisis. There are far too many monocultures that cannot counter the heat. That is why we are now reforesting a huge area in Mirow in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and planting mixed forest there, which creates new living space. But we are not climate neutral. And I want everyone to know that too. Because it just didn’t work. We could have bought certificates and legally said that we were climate neutral, which as a marketing ploy would certainly have boosted sales. But for me it would be self-deception.
Put on, keep pushing on
And honestly, it was self-deception that got us into this damned position in the first place. We are simply postponing too many unpleasant decisions into the future. I know it all too well: I’m 42 now and my dream has always been to run a marathon. But I’m very good at moving this show of strength into the future, because it’s better in the here and now if I don’t train for this ordeal. Maybe I’ll leave it all. But that is not an option with climate policy. We can’t just leave it!
We have to make it clear to the new government now that we will no longer tolerate hard solutions being postponed again into the future, just because that might not suit a stakeholder now. The water in the pool is up to our necks anyway, so the lobby doesn’t have to pee in the pool as well. The CO2 emissions must finally become so expensive that incentives are set for climate-friendly innovation. In other words, no matter how many plastic bags we can save privately – politicians have to deal with all of this. And because you will only be able to read this text when the general election is over, I can only hope that you have chosen real change. If not: there will be four new state elections in 2022. So, I beg you: let’s finally take this hose out of the pool. We’ve splashed enough.
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