So what’s the goal? You may ask. Why invest all this effort and time measuring something that we can not even see. Something that even sounds unreal for many.
Why put so many resources, talent, investments, research, even technology and energy into trying to compensate or put this element (carbon) back into place?
The question should be quite the opposite. Why are we lagging so much? What are we doing or distracted on, that we haven’t started with this process earlier?
Humanity seems to be racing towards a golden age beyond our wildest dreams. Technology is exceeding by far our imagination and sky seems to be the limit for what we are going to be capable of.
But is the limit really the sky? Hold on, try not to rush into those wild sci-fi dreams or pictures that cyberpunk movies have been trying to sell. As you can see if you´ve been paying attention, nature has its own intelligence, and it looks like she is in charge here. Even though we humans are making everything that’s possible to upset her, she is still giving and feeding us every single day asking for nothing in return. Seems to be infinit right?
Thus we can conclude that all that sci-fi craziness and unlimited technological development has a pretty defined limit which comes from the natural order that creates and grows all the living organisms which we as well are part of.
Carbon accounting, or environmental accounting, can then be seen as a technological breakthrough that´s using technology in one of the most loyal ways possible to our mother earth which has given maybe the most invaluable gift of all… life.
Another perspective we could use to understand the values on which this practice stands on is the following: as the dominant species of this planet we needed to create a way in which goods, resources, services could be shared, exchanged. If you look back upon history, it hasn’t been that easy. But we seem to be getting there. Nowadays that economical era seems to be reaching a maturity point where almost all countries are running using a capitalist system. Where those countries that have good legal systems and clear rules can help businesses thrive. Examples of this could be Australia, Canada, and the United States. As entrepreneurs we see that running our businesses in countries with a clear set of rules makes it easier to attract investments, while trying to run a business in a country with legal systems not really functional increases risk, and makes it harder to get investment (Eg: Argentina).
The point is that once the economical rules are in place, and people can run their businesses in a fair way, guaranteeing for themselves material abundance, we should then shift our attention towards taking care of our surroundings, towards that environment that has always been there nurturing us, with air, with food, with water, with the resources we use to feed our businesses and even ourselves grow, expand, and keep on sustaining life.
If you have been working in a big company, or even in a startup, you know that having a healthy income, and economy, is usually the first goal for any business. But as time goes by, we realize that we should also take care of people, and later on, the environment. It seems to be the exact same way our awareness works! First we human beings are just aware of ourselves and our selfish desires, but later on, as we develop empathy and a grateful attitude for what surrounds us, or for this life that we´ve been given, we start to realize that we can really thrive and do good by giving back to everything that surrounds us, be it people or nature. Many new age startups seem to be going this way.
So the loop seems to be closing. it was from the environment that we came into life, (it’s not surprising that for many native cultures human beings are soil with spirit) and it´s to that same environment that we now need to go & give back. Measuring our carbon footprint is just one way to do this. We´ve come full circle.