Carbon Offsets Policy

What is carbon offsetting? Carbonoffset.com.au defines it like this: 

“A carbon offset is generated by an activity that either prevents the release of, reduces, or removes GHG emissions from the atmosphere.

Emission reduction projects around the world generate carbon offsets from activities such as renewable energy, biogas and reforestation. Co-benefits of projects include improved economic, social and health for local communities.”

Hello Charlie is aiming to be a carbon neutral company. To do this in a strategic way, we need to use the following framework: 

• Measure
• Reduce
• Offset

Measuring our emissions

As a small/micro business with less than 10 employees, it can be cost prohibitive to undertake an independent audit of our carbon emissions. However, there are a number of tools that can help a business to estimate their emissions. 

We have used a couple to help us with our estimations: 

https://carbonneutral.com.au/carbon-calculator/ 

https://carbonfund.org/take-action/businesses/business-calculators/

Using these tools, we have estimated and rounded our annual emissions up to the nearest tonne as follows: 

• Electricity: 3 tonnes
• Shipping: 45 tonnes
• Office/warehouse waste: 0.1 tonnes
• Water: 0.02 tonnes
• Paper: 0.5 tonnes
• Work travel (including flights): 0.25 tonnes

Carbon emissions from the warehouse = 48.87 tonnes

Staff personal emissions = 65 tonnes

Total estimated emissions = 114 tonnes annually

Reducing our emissions

We have a number of policies in place to help us reduce our emissions, including: 

• using 100% greenpower
• having a preference for carbon neutral suppliers
• reducing the amount of new packaging that we buy
• working with our suppliers to reduce the amount of packaging sent to us, and therefore, waste that we need to dispose of 
• buying a new (secondhand!) electric car 
• reduce, reuse, recycle policies in the office and warehouse
• reducing food waste and food packaging by ensuring that staff have access to a kitchen for bringing lunch and making drinks
• installing a charge point for an electric vehicle  

Offsetting our emissions

Living in an urban Australian environment and running a commercial business means that no matter what we do by way of reduction, we will always have unavoidable emissions. We are therefore aiming to invest in carbon offset projects to help us to negate our estimated annual emissions. 

Target: 

Our estimated total annual emissions for our warehouse and staff personal emissions is 114 tonnes annually. Therefore we aim to offset at least this amount, and to become a climate positive workforce. 

However, we want to go even further, so have set ourselves a stretch goal to offset 200 tonnes annually. 

We are also aiming to plant 15,000 trees per year (a tree for every order) to help with reforestation and with future carbon sequestration.

How will we implement this? 

We are already implementing this by choosing suppliers who are carbon neutral, or at least offsetting their emissions.

Some examples:

• We use 100% green power from Powershop, who are also a carbon neutral company, so our power is already offset.
• We use Shippit for our shipping, who offset all of their deliveries, so our shipping is already being offset, at least to some extent. 
• We use Belong for our mobile phones, who are Australia’s first carbon neutral mobile phone company.

Through our chosen partner, ecologi, we are investing in carbon reduction projects that are certified to at least Gold Standard or equivalent.

Transparency:

Through the ecologi website, it's easy to see exactly what Hello Charlie has achieved. 

Each month, we need to offset approximately 17 tonnes of carbon, and plant 1250 trees. 

If you have any questions about our carbon offset policy, please email us at [email protected]