Wouldn’t our entire planet need to be covered in trees for this to even be close to realistic?
In: Planetary Science
Trees won’t be enough. If a company is relying on trees they are greenwashing at best and completely unsustainable at worst.
The ability of a company to go carbon free varies a lot, and most can only hope to be carbon neutral, where their current emissions are offset by carbon capture technology, which may be biological, but even at lower emissions levels would eventually take over much of the earth with nature preserves. Leaving little for us.
So to track and evaluate the SEC now requires [ESG reports](https://esgthereport.com/what-is-esg-reporting/) that standardize reporting on environmental impact across all sectors. These aren’t perfect, and are still being rolled out, but they do let investors compare multiple companies adherence to commitments. As self imposed deadlines approach, the theory is companies that are unable to meet their commitments will loose value and be replaced by more sustainable alternatives. A market solution to unchecked capitalism, a CEOs dream.
So, if you have investments, moving them to environmental portfolios is a great way to vote with your dollars. If someone would summarize and score the ESG reports, we could use them when evaluating purchases as well.
If neither investors nor consumers care about ESG reports, then the promises companies are making don’t matter.
In an ideal world we would simply tax companies based on negative externalities like carbon emissions. Then, companies unwilling or unable to reduce emissions would end up paying so much in taxes that they would need to create extremely useful products to operate at scale. Those products would be expensive, ensuring consumers are more judicious in the product’s use.
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