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Carbon offsets have existed for decades, and the size of the voluntary carbon market has ballooned to about $2 billion. Many countries and countless companies, including giants like Amazon and FedEx, use carbon offsets to reduce their emissions as they work toward reaching net zero. And yet, these offsets havent significantly curbed global greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, global emissions are still increasing. As a climate solution, carbon offsets have failedand according to a new scientific review looking at 25 years of carbon offset research, theyve failed because theyre riddled with intractable, deep-seated problems that incremental changes wont be able to solve. Carbon offsets have long been criticized for their issues, including concerns over greenwashing or double-counting. Multiple studies have found that individual offset projects overestimate their climate benefits. Offsets also dont always last; trees used as carbon offsets have burned in wildfires, releasing all the carbon theyve long stored. Proponents of carbon offsets say such criticisms focus on a few bad apples. But the problem is, it isnt really a few bad apples. Its pretty much all the apples, says Joseph Romm, a senior research fellow at the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, and the lead author on the review of offset research. 25 years of evidenceand issues Romm and his fellow researchers looked at carbon offset studies spanning more than two decades, and used more than 200 references, including documents from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Carbon offsets are essentially a way for rich polluterseither countries or companiesto finance projects that reduce emissions somewhere else. Then, they claim that projects emissions reduction for themselves, while continuing to pollute the atmosphere. Offsets need to be verified, and also additionala term meaning that the project wouldnt have happened anyway (it only exists, and benefits the climate, because of the offset program). But the idea of additionality is flawed, Romm says. Take renewable energy projects, which have long been the base of carbon offset projects, and are still the most common offsets today. We pay someone to do a renewable energy project, and then we say that that has reduced emissions. [But] the thing is, renewables are now the cheapest [energy to build], Romm says. As the cheapest option, renewable projects likely would be built anyway, so the offset project didnt really change anything. Since the carbon market is voluntary, theres no regulations or oversight. That creates a race to the bottom, Romm says, where buyers pay low prices for offset projects. Its left the world with the impression that theres a vast sea of cheap offsets in poor countries, he says. Its just not the reality. Its why theres been a reckoning in terms of companies realizing its going to take more effort to reduce their emissions. Other issues include impermanence (like offset projects burning in wildfires); leakage (when the pollution or logging is simply moved elsewhere, outside of the offsets boundary); and double counting (when more than one party claims the same carbon credit). Carbon offsets are a distraction Essentially, the voluntary carbon market is full of junk offsets that dont really have a climate benefit. The appeal of offsets is obvious: Without having to change their own behavior or pay a lot of money, countries and companies can claim another entitys emissions reductions. But the reality isnt that easy, and offsets are a distraction from the fact that we need to stop burning so many fossil fuels in the first place. At the end of the day, this comes down to: Everyone needs to get their own emissions as low as possible, Romm says. Theres no offloading this problem on someone else. Actual carbon capture projects, which sequester carbon from the atmosphere, could work as offsets, but those are currently expensive and operate at a small scale. It takes a lot less money and energy to not burn fossil fuels in the first place, than to burn them and then recapture the emissions. Such criticism of offsets isnt new. Romms review cites 25 years worth of them. This paper also builds on Romm’s publication from 2023, titled Carbon offsets are unscalable, unjust, and unfixableand a threat to the Paris Agreement. Romm hopes that by putting all this research in one place, and by having a comprehensive look back at the way carbon offsets have failed over the past two decades, it helps people understand the reality. Leaders of companies or countries always think they can be the one to solve the intractable issues within carbon offsets, Romm says. They say their technology is better, or that they really care about making it work. The review paper counters that notion. We wanted to have somewhere someone could go and simply see the compendium of studies and see that people have been warning about this for over two decades, he says. Everything they warned about is true. No one’s ever solved these problems.
Category:
E-Commerce
Amazon is rolling out kiosks that let patients get their prescriptions while they are still at the doctors office. Starting in December 2025, the tech behemoth will be stepping up its efforts to become a bigger presence in the pharmaceutical market by launching in-office pharmaceutical kiosks stocked with medicine. The kiosks will initially be launched at certain One Medical locations (which Amazon acquired in 2023 for $3.9 billion), including in Downtown Los Angeles, West Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Long Beach, and West Hollywood. The company claims that the kiosks will help combat pharmacy deserts across the U.S., and help patients who dont or cant fill their prescriptions for chronic health conditions. Doubling the dose This is the latest move into pharmaceuticals by Amazon, which on top of One Medical also acquired medical startup PillPack for $750 million in 2019. Amazon does not disclose the official number of prescriptions it fills yearly, its pharmaceutical and healthcare financials, or specific revenues for Amazon Pharmacy. In an earnings call in July, CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon Pharmacy grew 50% year-over-year “on an already significant size base.” Amazons pharmaceutical kiosk expansion comes as other longtime pharmacies are facing their own troubles and sizing down. Walgreens Boots Allianceowner of Walgreens Pharmacyannounced mass closures last year and was taken private in August of this year, while Rite Aid has closed all of its locations after filing for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, CVSthe sectors leader with a 33% market shareplans on closing 270 stores in 2025. Good news for those who want to get their prescriptions via One Medical: Patients do not need to be a member or pay a fee if they are not enrolled in Amazon Prime. As for prescription choices, kiosks will be stocked with medication based on prescribing patterns of consumers living in that specific location.
Category:
E-Commerce
Theres a common story in the marketing and advertising industry, with many variations. Whenever a member of that industry is at a party or on a plane, inevitably someone will ask what they do for a living. And as soon as they say advertising, that person immediately begins to tell them how good theyd be at working in advertising, how they should make this or that ad campaign better, or why that ad they saw during an NFL game is terrible. This probably doesnt happen to engineers and doctors. The discipline of advertising, and the process behind it has always been up for debate and question. Well, starting on September 30th, NBCs new show On Brand with Jimmy Fallon is shining a bright, reality show light on that very process. Brands like KitchenAid, Marshalls, Pillsbury, Samsung, SONIC, Dunkin’, Southwest, Captain Morgan, and Therabody, all signed up to have their briefs or brand challenges taken on by 10 contestants, guided through the process by Fallon and and Bozoma Saint-John. Saint-John is a former chief marketing or brand officer at companies including Netflix, Uber, and Beats by Drewho also just happens to star on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. For this months episode of the Brand New World podcast, she joined me on stage at Fast Companys Innovation Festival, which was held in New York City in mid-September. On how she became a part of the show: Jimmy had the idea and sold it probably a year before we had a conversation. The challenge that he was facing was that, of course, he’s a genius at what he does, commenting about pop culture and making creative partnerships. But what he would say he doesn’t have is the résumé, the professional corporate chops to back it up. So he needed a partner to add legitimacy to the show. Then he saw me on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and his wife said, “What about Boz?” And he was like, “I dunno if a housewife is what I’m looking for.” But of course, we got on a call together, and we talked about the idea and what it could mean, how much I love the concept . . . I told him that the concept of marrying those two thingsadvertising and marketingas an entertainment platform can engage an audience. I was like, “Shoot, you better sign me up. Otherwise, I’m just coming to set anyway.” On the value for the brands: Some of the criticism that I’ve seen has been like, “Oh, it’s gonna be like one big infomercial.” And I guarantee you it’s not. I compare this to finding a new music star shows entered, whether it was American Idol or The Voice. All of us became experts. You sat on your couch, you watched somebody sing. All of a sudden you knew terms like “pitchy.” Nobody had ever said pitchy outside of the studio. This is similar, which is that the audience who’s going to watch this, and I believe are going to be as invested as the contestants.
Category:
E-Commerce
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