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Carbon neutral / carbon neutrality
When a product, service, or process results in no net increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for a defined duration, then it can be considered ‘carbon neutral’. ‘No net increase’ means that CO2 emitted to the atmosphere matches CO2 removed from the atmosphere.
This has often historically been achieved through carbon offsetting, which means ensuring that product/service/process carbon emissions are ‘neutralised’ through external emission reduction/avoidance and greenhouse gas removal (through planting of trees or some other method to absorb or store carbon). Carbon insetting, a less commonly-used concept, aims at reducing emissions or increasing greenhouse gas removals wholly or partly within an organisation’s value chain.
Comment: carbon neutral is generally defined to only include carbon dioxide; ‘climate neutral’ in comparison would include all greenhouse gases; however, this is not always the case – sometimes the use of carbon neutral is meant to include all greenhouse gases. For more specific information about carbon neutrality, please refer to the Sustainability Claims Guideline Practical Instructions.
For practical purposes in UPM, climate or carbon neutral can be used at the product/process level, whereas reference to net-zero should be limited to use at the business-wide level (i.e., with regard to setting targets for the organisation).
Carbon, Climate and Life Cycle Assessment