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Bosch to be carbon neutral worldwide by 2020
- l_camacho84 7y agoThis is good news but sadly they don’t talk about transportation as normally they are not considered as a problem of the manufacturer. Maritime and airplane transportation emissions not being considered in Paris agreement illustrate this problem. Other thing is planned obsolescence. I wonder what is being made in the company to design products to last a lifetime.
- batmenace 7y agoWell at least on the consumer side, my perception has always been that their brand revolves around solidly built products that last long. We have a bunch of power tools that must be like 20 years old and still work like new.
- tsaoyu 7y agoMaritime and airplane emission is definite an issue after the grid power transferred to renewables. The problem is the low energy density and the variance in renewable resources. I guess for transportation it is more practical to aim for net carbon neutral.
- rjzzleep 7y agoI kinda like Bosch and props to them for their investment, but isn't offsetting CO2 kinda like sending your trash to China and then complaining how they ruin the planet?
- batmenace 7y agosurely it depends on how you offset your CO2, no? Makes a difference if its through using planting trees etc.
- weinzierl 7y ago> I kinda like Bosch Bosch is indeed interesting because it is over 90% owned by a charitable foundation, the rest is family property.
- clarry 7y agoDamn, now I feel like I made the wrong choice when I bought into the Ryobi One+ power tools. Would be nice if we just had batteries that are compatible across different manufacturers' lines. Sigh.
- sjs382 7y agoAs long as the voltage is the same, you can buy or make (3d printed plus a little bit of wiring—you can find files on thingiverse) adapters. The 20V line of DeWalt, Porter Cable and Craftsman are all compatible with slight modifications to the plastic on the battery housing. I know that's too much effort for most people, but it's nice to know that it's possible.
- PorterDuff 7y agoIt's a big company, but the average person is only exposed to their power tools. So what percentage of their tools are made in China now? How much of their manufacturing generally?
- gwbas1c 7y agoYou gotta start somewhere
- steve_adams_86 7y agoI don't disagree, but starting here is still very, very close to the starting line. To me it feels like lazily standing up to begin walking to the starting line, rather than having already left on the race. We're all very far from doing anything remotely meaningful in this endeavour.
- gdubs 7y agoIt costs money to capture carbon — whether it’s reforestation, or switching pasture to organic farming, scaling up an aquatic carbon sink of some kind, etc. So it’s definitely beneficial. And with properly audited trade markets, it should be reliable for “cancelling” emissions. At the moment it’s cheap. But as the market becomes saturated it’ll naturally get more expensive to offset; ideally that leads to innovations in other ways of reducing emissions. And, of course, we need to eventually get to negative emissions to reverse the warming we’ve already locked in.
- semi-extrinsic 7y ago"Bosch to buy lots of carbon offsets by 2020." Without any breakdown on how much is just buying carbon credits, and without any comparison to emissions further down in their supply chain, I'm skeptical about whether this is meaningful.
- scrooched_moose 7y ago> Carbon offsets are to be gradually scaled back by 2030, and Bosch is stepping up investments in renewable energies to this end. They're temporary until they get their renewable energy infrastructure in place. Not ideal, but they seem to have a plan.
- semi-extrinsic 7y agoSo in the longer term we're still left with the question, how much of the total emissions (including supply chain) of Bosch is due to Bosch's use of electricity? If somebody makes a battery final assembly plant in Iceland, and run it on geothermal energy only, but buy battery cells manufactured in China with energy from a brown coal powerplant, it's not so interesting that the 1% of emissions from final assembly was removed.
- simion314 7y agoIt can also be useful as a pressure to invest in cleaner technology, say if your currently are emitting X amount of CO2 that you have to pay for and if you invest some money to improve your processes and tech and now you emit X/2 then you will have to pay half as much in carbon taxes/credits in future.
- qntty 7y agoCan anyone who knows more about this than me comment on whether buying carbon offsets is more than just a PR move? Props for investment in green energy though.
- wefarrell 7y agoCarbon accounting is a discipline and there are firms that conduct audits.
- seiferteric 7y agoHypothetically, if someone developed a way to capture carbon, is there a market one could sell carbon credits on? If so, where is it and how do you prove you are providing what people are paying for?
- hollerith 7y agoIf no such market exists, then sell the carbon as fuel until a suitable market comes into being.
- andylynch 7y agoYes - the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) have been running side 2005. Carbon allowances ban be traded on some exchanges - for instance in the UK ICE Europe trades carbon contracts.
- FrojoS 7y agoThere is a company doing both http://www.climeworks.com/ http://www.climeworks.com/
- wefarrell 7y agoHow do companies that sell shares on public markets prove they are providing what people are paying for? There are independent firms that audit their financial statements.
- ghostly_s 7y ago
- perfunctory 7y agoLet's not fall for this corporate propaganda and delude ourselves into thinking that a profit seeking entity will somehow pay "social dividends" at the expense of profits. "Bosch has agreed to pay $327.5m to resolve allegations in the US that it played a significant role in Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH#Role_in_emission_cheating_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH#Role_in_emis... https://www.ft.com/content/964a2f72-e898-11e6-967b-c88452263daf https://www.ft.com/content/964a2f72-e898-11e6-967b-c88452263...
- WanderPanda 7y ago„Profit seeking entity“ is a far fetch considering Bosch is a foundation...
- perfunctory 7y agoStrictly speaking Bosch GmbH, though majority owned by Bosch Stiftung, is a separate entity.
- Brakenshire 7y agoThey can easily do that in exchange for enhanced employee satisfaction and good public relations, with all the financial benefits those bring.
- sonium 7y agoSpeaking of "propaganda" and then using the argument "they have admited guilt in the past, therefore any future action must be malevolent" is interesting...
- perfunctory 7y agoJust because green energy became as cheap as fossil and they can afford to switch without sacrificing profits doesn't mean they are taking "climate action". It's the same as if I claimed credit for "climate action" because I am paying energy tax. I am not saying this is malevolent. But it's at best neutral.
- GrumpyNl 7y agoHard to believe, these promises van Bosch. Will they fake it again?
- racecar789 7y agoBosch owns Dremel. I sent-in my five year old Dremel rotary tool for repair, along with payment info, fully expecting to get charged. I even noted on the repair slip "feel free to charge me for the repair". Instead, Bosch sent back a completely refurbished Dremel in almost brand new condition for free. I was like, damn they just earned a customer for life. Anyhow, I know I am biased but I have a little faith this carbon initiative is legit.
- paraschopra 7y agoNot many know but Bosch is owned 92% by a nonprofit, so they are practically a nonprofit company.