Purchase carbon credits and finance climate action
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With a significant agricultural value chain, including multiple brands with individual greenhouse gas footprints, achieving Net Zero for Nestle is a complicated process. Nestle needed a roadmap to get there.
Shopping and Protecting the Climate on eBay - Further Information
eBay aims to contribute to environmental sustainability in a transparent manner. To achieve this objective, customers have the option to directly contribute to climate protection projects when making purchases, thereby offsetting the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with their transactions.
CO2 Calculation Model
South Pole has developed a proprietary calculation model to assess the CO
2 footprint of eBay products. Given the extensive and diverse range of eBay's offerings, it is impractical to individually calculate the emissions for every product. As a result, the model is based on eBay's designated product categories. What this entails is that South Pole's experts have established an "average product" for each product category and calculated its emissions. This involved analyzing the best-selling products and determining a representative average weight and an "emission factor" (indicating the level of greenhouse gas emissions) for each respective product category. Utilizing the modeled weight (in kilograms) and the emission factor (in kilograms of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of product), the team calculated the CO2 emissions.
Naturally, there are variations within the categories. To account for this, the experts sometimes incorporate price as a factor. In certain categories, the model assigns different emission values to products with varying prices. However, this doesn't necessarily imply a direct correlation between price and CO
2 emissions of a product. It's an approximation. Transport also plays a crucial role: South Pole defines fixed values for emissions related to logistics between eBay sellers and buyers, based on conservative assumptions. Specifically, these assumptions consider transportation via an average truck over a distance of 500 kilometers. The methodology of the calculation model adheres to existing, scientifically validated approaches. In essence, South Pole employs a conservative approach in developing emission factors and product modeling, meaning it leans toward attributing higher rather than lower emissions to each product category. This approach ensures that an ample amount of emissions is compensated for across the average of a given product category.
Emission Factors:
South Pole has compiled a database of emission factors for various materials and products, measured in kilograms of CO
2 equivalents (CO2e) per kilogram of material/product. This database combines data from reliable sources along with proprietary modeling. Our model calculates a product's footprint from "cradle to customer," encompassing the entire lifecycle from raw material procurement to delivery. Given eBay's marketplace structure, detailed product information isn't uniformly accessible. In cases where data is limited, South Pole has made assumptions about weight and material composition for footprint calculations. This applies to transport emissions from manufacturer to distribution centers as well.
Furthermore, the carbon footprint provided in tons of CO2 for a product encompasses not only CO2 emissions but also emissions of other greenhouse gases (such as methane, nitrous oxide, fluorocarbons). These emissions are converted based on their respective greenhouse potentials and summarized as tons of CO2 equivalents (CO2e).
You can find out more information about the initiative on ebay.co.uk.
