Is the company you work for carbon neutral? Do you know and do you care?

Actually the term “carbon neutral” is a little suspect, since companies that pursue policies which reduce carbon emissions are wont to claim neutrality, when neutrality is pretty difficult to achieve – without buying carbon offsetting (paying others to reduce carbon dioxide emmissions) or owning your own lake-full of algae.

Anyway, if you’re not a “green crusader” then maybe you don’t know or want to know. But in the US and Europe, an increasing number of graduates ask about this at job interviews and some won’t work for a carbon positive company. That includes some of the best ones. I know this, because I heard a group of consultancy executives discussing this topic and the impact it is having on recruitment.

The pressure is there, and that company, like many others is waking up to the reality. I’m told that some companies are now preparing carbon “balance sheets” and instituting programs to “get carbon negative”. But that’s at the extreme. It’s not too difficult to make “carbon gestures” and there’s a reasonable chance of saving money over the medium term if you invest in insulation, reduced power consumption and use fluorescent light bulbs.

For most companies, true carbon neutrality probably can’t pay and won’t pay.