Regenerative food company, WhatIF Foods, has today announced a ground-breaking approach to carbon reduction developed in partnership with the global non-profit, The Pond Foundation.

The Pond Foundation manages My Carbon Zero, an initiative set up to help firms and individuals take immediate, serious, and credible climate action, through four simple actions:

• Reduce their own emissions
• Reduce emissions elsewhere without offsetting
• Remove their lifetime carbon emissions from the atmosphere
• Inspire others to join the journey

The My Carbon Zero initiative helps companies deal not just with today’s emissions, but with their ‘legacy’ emissions – all the carbon they’ve emitted since their inception – and helps them develop and implement a strategy to take the strongest climate action possible.

My Carbon Zero has determined WhatIF’s Lifetime Carbon Balance (LCB) according to the principles laid out in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol – Scope 1, 2 and 3 – and in alignment with ISO14064, the global standard for determining a company’s carbon balance.

However, the CEO of WhatIF Foods, Chris Langwallner, has decided to take this a step further in what is believed to be a world’s first. Rather than consider only the company’s LCB, WhatIF Food will include the LCB of all its employees, past and present, since its inception in 2014. Taking this approach increased WhatIF Food’s carbon liability by 2,000%.

Commenting on the move, Langwallner said: “A company without its people is just an incorporation certificate. We believe that a company’s lifetime carbon zero goal ought to include the LCB of all those wonderful individuals who bring the company to life – all our colleagues the world over. Hence, we are going to include all of our collective lifetime carbon balances in the overall WhatIF LCB.”

To remove this carbon from the atmosphere, WhatIF will ‘inset’ carbon back into the soils and environments of the farmers that grow the raw materials used to make WhatIF’s products.

Scott Poynton, founder, and CEO of The Pond Foundation added: “We set up My Carbon Zero to inspire company leaders and individuals to take the strongest climate action possible.

“The current Net Zero approach – reduce this year’s emissions and then offset the remainder – doesn’t move the needle and gives companies a marketing platform based on the weakest climate action possible.

“Chris went the other way, big time. He knows that if we’re to save the dreams of the next generation, we must take the strongest possible action. That’s what he’s done in extending his LCB calculation to all the people who have ever worked with the company. It’s bold, courageous and the ultimate in responsibility. There is no company anywhere in the world that has gone this far.”