GreenDice’s first webinar gave practical instructions on how to avoid greenwashing

On Wednesday, April 12, GreenDice’s practical webinar was held, the main speaker of which was the company’s CEO and founder, Argo Alaniit. He talked about environmental impact, greenwashing, how to recognize it, and how to avoid falling into its trap. In addition, examples of climate-positive activities from GreenDice’s partner companies were given.

Why is environmental innovation needed?

We all want to live a good and comfortable life, but a better life equals economic growth and a greater burden on the environment. The richer we become, the greater the burden on the environment. Already today, we consume more resources than the planet can produce again. The largest consumer country in the world is the USA, followed by England and China in third place.

Today, it is understood that if we want a better life, we must reduce our environmental impact. It is important to take responsibility for your own actions, not to find substitute actions or speak empty words.

At the seminar, we also discussed the concepts of carbon and ecological footprint.

According to estimates published by the European Commission, 53% of environmental claims made by companies contain incomplete, misleading information, while 40% are completely unsubstantiated.

Today we see a lot of unsubstantiated claims, arbitrary green labels, misleading messages, comparisons on the wrong basis, and various substitute activities that do not focus on reducing the environmental impact of the company. All this can be called greenwashing.

When planning different activities, it is important to ask how the given exercise reduces the carbon or ecological footprint of the product/service. We also highlighted some excellent examples from our partners:

• Coop Pank – the idea of reducing the space of your office without reducing the well-being of your employees;
• Cargoson – supply chain measurement and optimization as needed;
• R8 Technologies – “The greenest electricity is that which is not consumed!” Artificial intelligence helps optimize energy consumption.
• Skeleton Technologies – produces supercapacitors that are already used in trams today.
• Comodule /Tuul – works to reduce the number of cars on the streets, which harms the environment polluted.

 

We also shared exciting facts about water consumption in industries that have left a very deep mark on the environment. For example, it takes 3,900 liters of water to produce one cotton T-shirt, and cotton production in Uzbekistan destroyed the Aral Sea, which was 30 times larger than Lake Peipsi. The cost of water to produce a laptop is colossal. Today Colorado river is also at risk due to the high water usage by Intel’s chip factories.

The environmental impact of IT equipment is enormous because it is necessary to extract many different elements from the earth’s crust to produce them. For example, the production of a smartphone requires 46 different elements (such as aluminum, nickel, cobalt, platinum, etc.).

If you want to hear more about what we talked about, you can find the recording of the seminar at the link HERE (in Estonian).

 

Thanks to everyone who came to hear us live and shared their thoughts!