From Chad Hunter, Aspiration’s Head of Sustainability.
Hello Aspiration community!
Today we’re excited to announce that Aspiration is Climate Neutral Certified! 🎉
I want to briefly describe what that means, why it's important, and where we are going from here! Let’s go! 🚀
You are doing your part. We want to do ours.
At Aspiration, we see the incredible efforts so many of you are making to live a more sustainable life. From storing your deposits with us so they don’t fund fossil fuel companies, to planting over 28 million trees with Plant Your Change, to neutralizing the equivalent of 260 million miles of driving though our Planet Protection feature, every action adds up. We truly appreciate you being part of the solution! 🙌
We're committed to leading by example - here’s what we're doing to measure, reduce, and offset our own carbon footprint! 👏
Our climate commitment: we're officially Climate Neutral Certified!
We're beyond excited to announce a major milestone in our climate journey: Aspiration has officially achieved Climate Neutral Certified status for 2024!
As a Climate Neutral Certified brand, we are committed to doing our part to transition to a net zero world. We've joined forces with Change Climate to complete this independent certification, aligning ourselves with sustainability leaders like REI, Allbirds, Vuori, and Reformation to tackle our climate impact.
Here's what this means:
- Measured Our Climate Impact: Understanding our climate impact is the foundation of improvement. We meticulously measured our carbon footprint, including direct emissions from our operations, energy usage, employee commuting and travel, and even the emissions associated with our Redwood mutual fund 📊
- Science-Aligned Targets: Measuring is just the start. We've crafted ambitious, science-aligned targets to significantly reduce our emissions over time. These targets are in-line with the Science Based Targets initiative guidance for financial institutions’ operations emissions (SBTi, 2022) and are aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement’s commitment to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. These climate targets will keep us accountable as we implement strategies to reduce our carbon footprint 📉
- Investing in Change: We believe in tackling unavoidable emissions today. That's why we've purchased high-quality carbon credits to neutralize our 2023 footprint. These carbon credits fund essential climate projects like installing wind power, reforestation efforts, and preventing forests from being cut down. While we can’t erase our footprint, investing in these projects helps us take climate action while also helping us internalize the true cost of our emissions – giving us even more drive to reduce them 🌲
While we have done similar work to this in the past, this year we’ve taken things to the next level. This certification is a testament to our dedication to building a truly climate-friendly future. We're incredibly proud to share this news, and this is only the beginning!
Wind turbines create renewable energy to power economies.
What does it mean to be Climate Neutral Certified?
Starting today, our products will have the Climate Neutral Certified label. This label represents the trusted, independent Standard for climate neutrality and empowers consumers to find brands that are leading on immediate climate action.🙌
“Consumers hold incredible power to shape the economy, and their power is exerted through the actions of the brands they support. With our climate label, we’re helping consumers find companies that are taking action today and immediately investing in climate solutions.”
Austin Whitman, CEO of Change Climate.
All companies that get certified must reduce and compensate for all of their emissions from making and delivering products and services. Change Climate works with over 400 companies and their label can be found on millions of products worldwide. Keep an eye out for the Climate Neutral Certified label when you are shopping! 🛒
What’s next
We're deeply committed to transparency and accountability. In future blog posts, we'll walk through a detailed breakdown of our carbon footprint, our climate goals and reduction plans, and the impactful carbon credit projects we are helping support. 🌳
Stay tuned – because together, we're building a greener future. 🌱
References
SBTi. (2022). Financial Sector Science-Based Targets Guidance. https://sciencebasedtargets.org/resources/files/Financial-Sector-Science-Based-Targets-Guidance.pdf