It's important that companies look more broadly than just balancing carbon when designing their sustainability strategies.
Many others have written on the subject since SEI, mostly with similar points to make. More recently, I have heard people in more practical roles, particularly in agriculture, using the "C tunnel vision" phrase and I sense that they are using it slightly differently.
When I hear some people use the phrase, I sense that they are saying that not only are there other things to worry about, but also that Carbon is really not their concern. There are a few reasons for adopting that attitude, some better than others.
One reason is there are still many in farming and ranching who really do not think that their activities have contributed in any significant way to climate change. This view tends to be supported by those who emphasise the limited contribution of direct enteric emissions, for example, to climate change. There is some logic to this, because the percentage of overall emissions that comes from enteric emissions is small in relation to the total, and the question of their contribution to warming depends on which metric you use.
However, I think everyone now agrees that climate change is caused by human activity and therefore, even if you don't think your activity contributes hugely, it would make sense to do at least your "bit."
There are those who recognise the importance of climate change, but do not think there is very much that they can do about it, and most of their sustainability work is much more important to their operation than an individual focus on emissions.
Again, I can see the logic of this because for most producers, adaptation is going to be a primary concern. While everyone needs to eat, and will continue to do so, productivity and efficiency are also priorities.
I would add that many of the things that contribute to adaptation, productivity and efficiency, are also capable of contributing to mitigating climate change.
More importantly, is the fact that people who are doing practical work find abstract talk about carbon frustrating. This is particularly true if the carbon they are supposed to be controlling is in the form of methane which they cannot even see or measure.
On the other hand, people involved in desk based jobs tend to like to simplify things to abstracts, and of course accounting is bread and butter to many such roles.
So, while practical people see Carbon as overly simplistic and possibly just a distraction, the more theoretical people, including policy makers etc, think it is a useful way to bring order to the chaos of an overly complex world. Rather than seeing carbon as a tunnel through which they view the world, they believe they are seeing the world through a "prism" that helps them account for many issues using one element.
While that is a pretty facile distinction between two caricatures, I think it might help us when we are talking to different audiences. We have previously talked in our communications summit about tailoring the message to the audience, and that does not just mean the story we are telling, but the way in which we do so.
Talking about carbon might be great for a room of policy makers or bankers, but a group of cattle producers are probably going to be more interested in talking about cattle, calving intervals, weaning weights, or grass or water.
Unless you're paying for carbon, of course. Then we get back to the whole balancing the books discussion we started this with, and the difference between insetting and offsetting.
To finish up, we have a Climate Goal, not a Carbon goal, and for some of our members that feels too abstract. I'd encourage all of us to think about how to make some of the abstracts we talk about more concrete, more real for all of our members.
When we all understand how those abstract things relate to our practical work, we are much more motivated to deliver on them.
