While we continuously work toward our long-term goal, we insist on helping to accelerate the process of both reducing our emissions and combatting our overall climate challenges.
In order to make the ultimate contribution, we have joined forces with CHOOOSE, a Norwegian-based climate- and technology company. Taking part in their carbon offset program means that we will offset the unavoidable carbon footprint of our collections by supporting a CO2-reducing renewable energy project in China when you purchase one of our items.
What’s a carbon footprint?
A carbon footprint is the emissions of greenhouse gases associated with any specific activity or transaction.
Which project does LOUNGE NINE support to become carbon neutral?
LOUNGE NINE has initiated a comprehensive collaboration with the Norwegian startup CHOOOSE to climate compensate for those activities that’re connected with the brand’s daily business but can’t be solved sustainably yet. After careful consideration and competent feedback from CHOOOSE, LOUNGE NINE currently seeks to create action through a CO2-reducing program in China.
As the rural regions of Sichuan Province are among the poorest in China with low-come households having an average annual per capita income of less than 500 EUR, LOUNGE NINE has decided to support the installation of one million biogas digesters and convenient smoke-free cookstoves. These digesters recover methane emissions originating from the widely used animal manure storage pits and provide participating households with clean, convenient, and free biogas for cooking, heating, and lighting.
Contributing to the formation of many certified technical service providers for biogas digesters and cookstoves, this program also offers the participating households free annual maintenance service and on-demand technical support via the large network of Rural Energy Offices in Sichuan. In doing so, the program prevents interruptions of the biogas digester operation and reduces the risk of dangerous accidents.
By avoiding both methane emissions from the pits and carbon dioxide emissions from household use of coal and firewood, the supported program has the potential to save up to 20 million tCO2e within its 28-year lifetime and promote social change for the 36 counties that’ve been declared ‘national poverty counties’ by the Chinese government.
The projected savings correspond to roundabout half of Switzerland’s annual GHG emissions.
Can offsetting carbon emissions really tackle climate change?
Even in the best-case scenario, the transition to a low-carbon world will take time, and offsetting can’t prevent climate change on its own. We must all play a part. Governments, corporations, cities, regions, and individuals. In the meantime, everyone and everything will have a foreseeable carbon footprint. The same goes for LOUNGE NINE, even though, the brand works really hard to reduce it.
Until we collectively reach a carbon-free world, we all need to do something about our residual carbon footprint – and paying to reduce an equivalent amount of carbon emissions through voluntary carbon offsetting is the most cost effective, fast, and efficient way to do so.
Unlike other environmental impacts such as water use, it doesn’t matter where in the world carbon is reduced. Money spend on offsetting can be channeled to projects that deliver the maximum carbon reduction in the shortest time. For LOUNGE NINE, the installation of one million biogas digesters and convenient smoke-free cookstoves in poor Chinese counties seems like a wholesome program to fund.