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For real or are they purchasing dodgy “offsets?”

by api 3y ago

Bang2Bay 3y ago
offset is what its name suggests. sometimes its ok if a company innovates or pays money to others to innovate.
- vladf 3y ago
  Sure, but the reasons offsets are dodgy is because they actually aren't fungible in the way you're hoping for. Say a paper maker is about to cut down a forest in the US. It buys up the rights to do so for $1M. Then, instead, it sells $1M worth of carbon credits to Amazon (maybe for a premium) for its data center greenwashing and doesn't end up cutting the US forest. But then, secretly, or through some shell company machinery, it buys a plot of land in the Amazon and cuts trees down anyway to match its demand. Even though US law makers evaluate the counterfactual of the paper maker cutting trees down in the US, the net amount of trees in the world goes down.
  - belval 3y ago
    Doesn't have to be that complicated to be dodgy. A bunch of carbon offset works on optimistic to downright stupid metrics for carbon capture. For example they buy a plot of land and then raze it, then they will plant 10k saplings and take that figure at face value even if most of those won't take and actually become trees. Then they will estimate the CO2 captured by averaging it over the entire life of the tree (say 30 years) and count year 1 as if it captured 1/30 of the CO2 even though the carbon capture potential of tree is not constant throughout its life. Beyond that they will double count the carbon credits of the plot of land by selling them twice. Finally after all the above, they will sell the plots after ~5 years to buy some other plots and it will be razed anyway. No one actually checks that the carbon capture forest will be there in 10 years, let alone 30.
  - xyzzyz 3y ago
    I know that you are just trying to make a point, but just to be clear: no paper maker in US is importing Amazon trees to make paper out of them. That would be exceedingly idiotic from profit-making perspective.
belval 3y ago
Probably a bit of both, but their competition in this article is unproven and unbuilt data centers. Ultimately DCs don't exist in a vaccum, if the energy in Europe makes it possible to be 100% renewables without dodgy offsets then everyone will be, not just evroc. If it's not possible then nothing in the articles gives me the impression that they have a secret sauce that would make their 100% renewables "true 100%".
iLoveOncall 3y ago
This is made perfectly obvious by "running on 100% renewables". You can see more details on https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/renewable-energy https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/renewable... It's when there are mentions of "net zero" that carbon credits are purchased (which Amazon does too, but not for what we're talking about).
- apendleton 3y ago
  They're still pretty squirrelly about the specifics of their commitment, though. In particular, it's not clear if it's hourly accounting (but the fact that they don't say so suggests to me that it isn't), and there doesn't seem to be any discussion of additionality. In other words: it might be that exactly the same amount of renewable generation, and exactly the same amount of fossil-fuel generation, are going to occur with this pledge as would have without, and this is just shuffling some numbers between columns in a spreadsheet.
conradev 3y ago
It’s a lot of renewables: > The top 25 corporate solar users in 2022 include: > Meta > Amazon > Apple > Walmart > Microsoft https://www.seia.org/news/solarmeansbusiness2022 https://www.seia.org/news/solarmeansbusiness2022 Just as one data point
troyvit 3y ago
I don't know why you're getting downvoted, the efficacy of carbon offsets is debatable: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/greenwashing-or-net-zero-necessity-climate-scientists-on-carbon-offsetting-aoe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/greenwas... https://earth.org/is-carbon-offset-a-form-of-greenwashing/ https://earth.org/is-carbon-offset-a-form-of-greenwashing/ And there are plenty of dodgy players out there that large organizations use: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed... And there are plenty of government programs that just don't work: https://e360.yale.edu/features/phantom-forests-tree-planting-climate-change https://e360.yale.edu/features/phantom-forests-tree-planting... I'm sitting here asking myself how much Amazon cares about that, but also wondering how the "unknown Swedish startup" will approach being green.

For real or are they purchasing dodgy “offsets?”

by api 3y ago

For real or are they purchasing dodgy “offsets?”

Bang2Bay 3y ago

offset is what its name suggests. sometimes its ok if a company innovates or pays money to others to innovate.

vladf 3y ago
Sure, but the reasons offsets are dodgy is because they actually aren't fungible in the way you're hoping for. Say a paper maker is about to cut down a forest in the US. It buys up the rights to do so for $1M. Then, instead, it sells $1M worth of carbon credits to Amazon (maybe for a premium) for its data center greenwashing and doesn't end up cutting the US forest. But then, secretly, or through some shell company machinery, it buys a plot of land in the Amazon and cuts trees down anyway to match its demand. Even though US law makers evaluate the counterfactual of the paper maker cutting trees down in the US, the net amount of trees in the world goes down.
- belval 3y ago
  Doesn't have to be that complicated to be dodgy. A bunch of carbon offset works on optimistic to downright stupid metrics for carbon capture. For example they buy a plot of land and then raze it, then they will plant 10k saplings and take that figure at face value even if most of those won't take and actually become trees. Then they will estimate the CO2 captured by averaging it over the entire life of the tree (say 30 years) and count year 1 as if it captured 1/30 of the CO2 even though the carbon capture potential of tree is not constant throughout its life. Beyond that they will double count the carbon credits of the plot of land by selling them twice. Finally after all the above, they will sell the plots after ~5 years to buy some other plots and it will be razed anyway. No one actually checks that the carbon capture forest will be there in 10 years, let alone 30.
- xyzzyz 3y ago
  I know that you are just trying to make a point, but just to be clear: no paper maker in US is importing Amazon trees to make paper out of them. That would be exceedingly idiotic from profit-making perspective.

belval 3y ago

Probably a bit of both, but their competition in this article is unproven and unbuilt data centers. Ultimately DCs don't exist in a vaccum, if the energy in Europe makes it possible to be 100% renewables without dodgy offsets then everyone will be, not just evroc. If it's not possible then nothing in the articles gives me the impression that they have a secret sauce that would make their 100% renewables "true 100%".

iLoveOncall 3y ago

This is made perfectly obvious by "running on 100% renewables". You can see more details on https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/renewable-energy https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/renewable... It's when there are mentions of "net zero" that carbon credits are purchased (which Amazon does too, but not for what we're talking about).

apendleton 3y ago
They're still pretty squirrelly about the specifics of their commitment, though. In particular, it's not clear if it's hourly accounting (but the fact that they don't say so suggests to me that it isn't), and there doesn't seem to be any discussion of additionality. In other words: it might be that exactly the same amount of renewable generation, and exactly the same amount of fossil-fuel generation, are going to occur with this pledge as would have without, and this is just shuffling some numbers between columns in a spreadsheet.

conradev 3y ago

It’s a lot of renewables: > The top 25 corporate solar users in 2022 include: > Meta > Amazon > Apple > Walmart > Microsoft https://www.seia.org/news/solarmeansbusiness2022 https://www.seia.org/news/solarmeansbusiness2022 Just as one data point

troyvit 3y ago

I don't know why you're getting downvoted, the efficacy of carbon offsets is debatable: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/greenwashing-or-net-zero-necessity-climate-scientists-on-carbon-offsetting-aoe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/greenwas... https://earth.org/is-carbon-offset-a-form-of-greenwashing/ https://earth.org/is-carbon-offset-a-form-of-greenwashing/ And there are plenty of dodgy players out there that large organizations use: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed... And there are plenty of government programs that just don't work: https://e360.yale.edu/features/phantom-forests-tree-planting-climate-change https://e360.yale.edu/features/phantom-forests-tree-planting... I'm sitting here asking myself how much Amazon cares about that, but also wondering how the "unknown Swedish startup" will approach being green.