We believe that, in the short term, one of the most fundamentally important aspects of addressing the crisis of climate change is that we all not only do better in the days and years ahead, but also feel the pain of decisions past. Highform strives to be a company of the future. Delivering ideas and technologies that empower our industry. This is the future’s most valuable investment.
Starting today, we’re making an annual investment into carbon credits that more than offset the total Co2 output of our entire team and infrastructure, AND making this retroactive from Highform’s inception.
We are not a large company, this investment hurts us. And, to be clear, it is an investment. One that will ensure our business (and yours) stays financially viable long into the future. It is up to us, as a business and as individuals, to make smart investments to reverse course and avoid further temperature increase, at all cost.
The first step is to gain a deep understanding of our companies’ current carbon output:
To this end, we calculated an estimated carbon output of our entire team, both salaried staff and part-time contractors, to get a holistic view of how much carbon Highform is directly responsible for. This is a difficult task with our team now distributed and working entirely remotely. We calculated home energy usage, personal computers, personal vehicles and travel, meals, personal hardware manufacturing, shipping, and more, all paired with company-level carbon output including our main office and server infrastructure - accounting for all five years of our growth as a company.
All told, Highform’s output over the last 5 years was 589.5 tCO2e.
To start, we purchased 335tCO2e certified carbon credits. Later this year, we will purchase an additional 254.5 tCO2e, and, moving forward, we will double offset every year’s output while also striving to reduce our negative impact in every aspect we can to make us carbon negative.
Throughout the year, we will make additional donations and investments toward technologies and ideas as they present themselves. (Sidenote: If you know of promising carbon offset technology companies located in Arizona, we’d love to hear about them!)
Perhaps the most important element of this decision is the financial pain it inflicts. It’s not about cutting the check and calling it done, it’s about feeling the pain of that check and working endlessly to directly reduce our own carbon footprint, thereby reducing the cost of this annual spend. It’s now in Highform’s best financial interest to reduce our output. And, damn it, we will.
Interested in offsetting your own carbon? There are a variety of great resources out there. Just to name a few:
https://www.3degreesinc.com
https://www.native.eco
https://www.goldstandard.org
https://www.terrapass.com