Facebook keeps lips closed on carbon dioxide emissions 

Part of our vision is to help organizations in hospitality, education and government to reduce their impact on their environment. If you know us at all, you know that one measure we use consistently across projects and with our clients is carbon dioxide emissions, or carbon footprint – our carbon footprint calculator shows the impact of buying new furniture compared to furniture asset management techniques such as refinishing.

We’re not alone in our bid to reduce carbon footprint size. Businesses, public associations, and governments are increasingly committed to reducing their impact on the environment – and to quantify their results. We know ourselves that our customers not only want to know what their carbon footprint has been reduced by, they want to share it. Earlier this year we shared our ‘cut the carbon’ infographic to highlight some of the facts behind carbon dioxide emissions.

Yet there are businesses out there that may be ‘talking the talk’ they are not ‘walking the walk’. This includes social networking behemoth Facebook, which has refused to share essential data with the Carbon Disclosure Project that would show the company’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, and could be used as a benchmark to monitor the company’s carbon-related activities year-on-year.

The Carbon Disclosure Project, or CDP, is an international, not-for-profit organization that provides a system to measure, disclose, manage and share vital environmental information. CDP works with institutional investors with assets of more than $92 trillion to motivate companies to disclose their impact on the environment and natural resources – and take action to reduce them.

We say ‘talking the talk’ as Facebook not only has a huge standing among green-conscious millennials but was one of the founding companies behind www.collectively.org which encourages millennials to “Take meaningful action. Choose to make a difference.” It seems hypocritical to have a large footprint in the millennial market and to keep your carbon footprint a secret.

Unfortunately Facebook isn’t alone – a handful of other companies that refused to share carbon-related data with the Carbon Disclosure Project include Amazon, Time warner Cable and Comcast.

But it’s not all bad news.  In its report, ‘The A List: The CDP Climate Performance Leadership Index 2014’ the CDP shares the 187 businesses that: ‘”demonstrated a superior approach to climate change mitigation,” citing BMW, Centrica, Samsung Electronics and Unilever.  The CDP also calculates that the climate performance leaders have reduced emissions by 33 million metric tons in the last year – which is apparently the equivalent to turning all of London’s car owners into cyclists for two and a half years.  That’s a great statistic to share – even over Facebook.

Check out our full  ‘Cut the Carbon and the Cost’ infographic here.