Well at least on the consumer side, my perception has always been that their brand revolves around solidly built products that last long. We have a bunch of power tools that must be like 20 years old and still work like new.
Maritime and airplane emission is definite an issue after the grid power transferred to renewables. The problem is the low energy density and the variance in renewable resources.
I guess for transportation it is more practical to aim for net carbon neutral.
Can anyone who knows more about this than me comment on whether buying carbon offsets is more than just a PR move? Props for investment in green energy though.
All carbon offsets are not created equal (in fact, most of them are bogus). There are alternative energy companies in our "deregulated" energy market here in Illinois who will sell you "100% clean electricity" in the form of offsets. These offsets represent things like wind farms in Texas that were built years ago -- buying a "credit" for this electricity does nothing to add new renewable capacity to the grid, remove more carbon from the atmosphere, or change our emissions landscape in any way whatsoever. Credits for new renewable generating capacity one could argue to be a positive thing, but this market is pretty much entirely unregulated now and most of these products are not much more than accounting tricks.
> These offsets represent things like wind farms in Texas that were built years ago -- buying a "credit" for this electricity does nothing to add new renewable capacity to the grid, remove more carbon from the atmosphere, or change our emissions landscape in any way whatsoever
The producer being able to sell those credits going forward is what made the plant economical to build in the first place.
How are other credits for "new renewable capacity" any different? That new plant is going to be producing renewable energy and selling renewable energy credits for long after it gets built. The projected returns from selling those credits is part of the financing they used to build it.
If more people are trying to buy RECs, the market value of those RECs goes up, and it enables more producers to invest in new renewable capacity because they'll be able to sell RECs for more money.
Of course the additional credits on the market could push prices back down if a lot gets built (woo fucking hoo, that's what we're trying to encourage!), and the market demand for more credits to purchase is also increasing as governments pass requirements for XX% renewable capacity by YYYY year.
1) A producer gets a REC for putting 1 MWh into the grid from renewable generation. This energy mixes in with all the other energy on the grid, it doesn't go anywhere in particular.
2) The producer sells this REC on the market.
3) The consumer who buys the REC is considered to have purchased renewable energy, either to meet renewable energy requirements or just for their own personal reasons because it's a good thing to do.
In 29 states, DC, and PR, they have "Renewable Portfolio Standards" which require electric suppliers to have a certain amount of renewable energy in their production portfolio. They can own this production capacity and make the RECs themselves, or they could burn natural gas and buy a bunch of RECs from a third party, or even a bunch of people with solar panels on their roofs.
Beyond those 29 states, people also buy them just to say "We run on clean energy." A friend of mine has an electric car and buys renewable energy to go with it. Did the actual electrons in his car come from a wind turbine? No, but he's helping make wind power more economically viable through the renewable energy credits.
There's only so many offsets to go around though, right? So demand for them _should_ produce demand for new energy if enough of the offset demand... right?
I think it is a PR move - but might be good for us. If there are lots of companies willing to offset their carbon emissions, this creates a market for solutions. And if there's a market, then there's a reason to invest in product development (I'm thinking about carbon capture solutions).
Same thing with switching to renewable energy. Higher demand pushes prices up and therefore fuels innovation and development of new projects.
I don't see this making any difference for the company itself (except the PR benefits and on the negative side the costs). The real benefits come from actually reducing carbon emissions. It is possible we will in the future have something like a carbon tax. If this happens, companies that have already cut their emissions have an advantage. Also, this can start affecting the share prices already earlier as investors will start counting in the possibility of carbon tax happening.
Disclaimer: I have no idea how carbon intensive their production is. In some industries, the actual emissions are meaningless and true carbon opportunities/risks lay elsewhere. In the case of Bosch, it might be for example the switch from developing technology for combustion engines to electric cars that has the real effect.
Hypothetically, if someone developed a way to capture carbon, is there a market one could sell carbon credits on? If so, where is it and how do you prove you are providing what people are paying for?
Yes - the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) have been running side 2005. Carbon allowances ban be traded on some exchanges - for instance in the UK ICE Europe trades carbon contracts.
How do companies that sell shares on public markets prove they are providing what people are paying for? There are independent firms that audit their financial statements.
"Bosch to buy lots of carbon offsets by 2020." Without any breakdown on how much is just buying carbon credits, and without any comparison to emissions further down in their supply chain, I'm skeptical about whether this is meaningful.
So in the longer term we're still left with the question, how much of the total emissions (including supply chain) of Bosch is due to Bosch's use of electricity?
If somebody makes a battery final assembly plant in Iceland, and run it on geothermal energy only, but buy battery cells manufactured in China with energy from a brown coal powerplant, it's not so interesting that the 1% of emissions from final assembly was removed.
It can also be useful as a pressure to invest in cleaner technology, say if your currently are emitting X amount of CO2 that you have to pay for and if you invest some money to improve your processes and tech and now you emit X/2 then you will have to pay half as much in carbon taxes/credits in future.
I kinda like Bosch and props to them for their investment, but isn't offsetting CO2 kinda like sending your trash to China and then complaining how they ruin the planet?
Damn, now I feel like I made the wrong choice when I bought into the Ryobi One+ power tools. Would be nice if we just had batteries that are compatible across different manufacturers' lines. Sigh.
It costs money to capture carbon — whether it’s reforestation, or switching pasture to organic farming, scaling up an aquatic carbon sink of some kind, etc. So it’s definitely beneficial. And with properly audited trade markets, it should be reliable for “cancelling” emissions.
At the moment it’s cheap. But as the market becomes saturated it’ll naturally get more expensive to offset; ideally that leads to innovations in other ways of reducing emissions. And, of course, we need to eventually get to negative emissions to reverse the warming we’ve already locked in.
I don't disagree, but starting here is still very, very close to the starting line. To me it feels like lazily standing up to begin walking to the starting line, rather than having already left on the race. We're all very far from doing anything remotely meaningful in this endeavour.
Bosch owns Dremel. I sent-in my five year old Dremel rotary tool for repair, along with payment info, fully expecting to get charged. I even noted on the repair slip "feel free to charge me for the repair".
Instead, Bosch sent back a completely refurbished Dremel in almost brand new condition for free.
I was like, damn they just earned a customer for life.
Anyhow, I know I am biased but I have a little faith this carbon initiative is legit.
Let's not fall for this corporate propaganda and delude ourselves into thinking that a profit seeking entity will somehow pay "social dividends" at the expense of profits.
Speaking of "propaganda" and then using the argument "they have admited guilt in the past, therefore any future action must be malevolent" is interesting...
Just because green energy became as cheap as fossil and they can afford to switch without sacrificing profits doesn't mean they are taking "climate action". It's the same as if I claimed credit for "climate action" because I am paying energy tax. I am not saying this is malevolent. But it's at best neutral.
Maritime and airplane transportation emissions not being considered in Paris agreement illustrate this problem.
Other thing is planned obsolescence. I wonder what is being made in the company to design products to last a lifetime.