Rick Crawford
I am very proud to announce that Fly Fishing Climate Alliance (FFCA) member and Emerger Strategies client, Driftless Angler, has become the Midwest’s 1st Carbon Neutral Fly Shop! Driftless Angler joined the FFCA in January 2021 and we worked with them to calculate their 2020 carbon footprint, put in place strategies to reduce their carbon footprint and provided them with a pathway to carbon neutrality through the purchase of carbon offsets.
Driftless Angler’s 2020 Carbon Footprint Report
First and foremost, it’s important to understand why we decided to go carbon neutral. Climate change is the single greatest threat to fish and fisheries on the planet, and according to the Intergovernmental Panel in Climate Change (IPCC), the world would have to curb its carbon emissions by at least 49% of 2017 levels by the year 2030 and then achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 in order to avoid catastrophic climate change effects. As a fly shop, we love to fish and want to protect what we love by doing our part to be part of the solution.
We decided to join the Fly Fishing Climate Alliance, which is made up of fly fishing guides, shops, lodges, brands and nonprofits committed to going carbon neutral by 2030. We are incredibly fortunate in what we do. Being able to make a living chasing fish with a fly and sharing our unique area with others is a blessing. Being outdoors often tunes you in to the rhythms of an area pretty well, and during the past decade what we are seeing isn’t making us happy. Changing weather patterns, more extreme weather events, wild fluctuations in what were stable patterns have changed rapidly even within the past decade.
While we have taken many small steps towards sustainability and lessening our footprint, we decided to put our money where our mouth is. Going carbon neutral is simply the right thing to do. Our fisheries are fragile things, and if we want to continue to enjoy them, then people in the fly fishing industry need to become leaders in lessening their impact on the waters that they love. We’ve taken the first step to show that we care about the future of our fisheries and have committed to being a steward in word and deed to protect the places we love and the hobby we all enjoy. We also wanted to make a statement that even a small mom and pop fly shop in Wisconsin can become carbon neutral. It is within all of our abilities to make a positive impact on the planet!
Carbon Neutral is defined by the World Resources Institute as “annual zero net anthropogenic (human caused or influenced CO2 emissions by a certain date. By definition, carbon neutrality means every ton of anthropogenic CO2 emitted is compensated with an equivalent amount of CO2 removed (e.g. via carbon sequestration)….”
Methodology
Driftless Angler’s carbon footprint follows the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard, and in an effort to provide you with a relevant, complete, consistent, transparent and accurate greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, I’m sharing the official methodology:
Spend-based method – Estimate emissions for goods and services by collecting data on the economic value of goods and services purchased and multiplying it by relevant secondary (e.g., industry average) emission factors (e.g., average emissions per monetary value of goods).
Organizational Boundary: We are taking a financial control approach, which assumes that your business has financial control over its operations and the ability to direct the financial and operating policies over these activities.
Operational Boundary: In order to set our operational boundaries, we must report our Scope 1 (direct emissions) and Scope 2 (indirect emissions) and are voluntarily reporting our Scope 3 (indirect emissions). For more information on see table below:
Carbon Footprint
Below is a summary of our 2020 carbon footprint:
- SCOPE 1 GHG Emissions: 2.6 mtCO2e
- SCOPE 2 GHG Emissions: 9 mtCO2e
- SCOPE 3 GHG Emissions: 102.8 mtCO2e
- 1.1 Heating: We accounted for the GHG emissions associated with burning natural gas for our shop and guest apartment.
- 2.1 Electricity: We accounted for the GHG emissions associated with our shop and guest apartment. We do purchase renewable energy directly from our utility provider, but we included the total GHG emissions from our electricity and heating so we can begin to track our greenhouse gas reductions through energy efficiency and solar going forward.
- 3.1 Manufacturing/Product Embodied Carbon: While we don’t manufacture any products, there is embodied carbon in the equipment we sell, so we did account for all the soft goods (apparel) and hard goods (rods, reels, etc.).
- 3.2 Capital Goods: Not applicable.
- 3.3 Fuel & Energy Related Activities: We accounted for the round-trip miles from our guide service by calculating the number of guided trips by the average round-trip vehicle miles from the shop to the boat ramp. However, we did not account for the miles that our customers travelled to get to our shop for a number of reasons, but basically, some people who book trips with us are on vacation and just book a day of fishing, and others do travel specifically to fish with us, but we do not have a way to estimate that data.
- 3.4 Inbound Shipments: We estimated the weight of spring and fall shipments from our vendors to account for our inbound shipments.
- 3.5 Waste Generated in Operations: We estimated the weight of our trash sent to the landfill and what was recycled to determine the weight of the waste generated in our operations.
- 3.6 Business Travel: 2020 was a weird travel year due to COVID, so we did not have any business travel in 2020.
- 3.7 Employee Commuting: We accounted for the round-trip miles associated with employee commuting.
- 3.9 Shipments to Customers: We also accounted for the number of packages we shipped to our customers through our online store.
That said, in following the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, we did not include some of the recommended categories because they were deemed not applicable, such as: capital goods, upstream leased assets and end-of-life of sold products.
How Driftless Angler Achieved Carbon Neutrality
Before we explain how we went carbon neutral, we feel it’s also important to define carbon offsets:
Carbon Offsets: “An offset project is “a specific activity or set of activities intended to reduce GHG emissions, increase the storage of carbon, or enhance GHG removals from the atmosphere.”3 The project must be deemed additional4; the resulting emissions reductions must be real, permanent, and verified; and credits (i.e, offsets) issued for verified emissions reductions must be enforceable.”
So, you are probably wondering, how did we go carbon neutral if our carbon footprint is 114.1 mtCO2e? In short, we purchased carbon offsets for our Scope 1, 2 & 3. We decided to purchase offsets from multiple projects around the world to increase our impact through choosing offsets that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, sequester carbon and protect wildlife through the nonprofit, Cool Effect. Below is a brief description of the project:
A Better Use for Pig Poo: “This project reduces 12,600 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents each year or 126,000 metric tonnes over the 10-year life of the project by recycling swine waste and converting it into compost.”
Affordable Cookstoves: “This project makes and distributes cookstoves that reduce charcoal or wood use for cooking by over 50%. It cuts carbon emissions and deforestation while providing life-changing health benefits and cost savings to local families.”
Alto Mayo Protected Forest: “This project protects nearly 450,000 acres from deforestation. Since trees sequester carbon pollution, more trees = less CO₂. The Alto Mayo forest is twice the size of New York City but it’s under threat from deforestation despite its protected status. This project provides technical assistance and advice on the ground to transform illegal loggers into organic coffee farmers and eco-entrepreneurs. Local people earn more while taking pride in protecting the forest and its endangered plants and animals and the planet benefits.”
Biogas Digesters and Clean Cookstoves: “Much of rural Sichuan Province in China lacks proper waste management degrading hygiene and creating methane gas emissions that are 25 times more harmful to the planet than CO₂.
This project helps solve these problems by installing biogas digesters that decompose organic waste, turning it naturally into clean fuel that replaces the need to burn coal or wood. It improves the health of the local communities by creating a sanitation system that provides a waste collection point and creates compost for fertilizer that increases agricultural productivity. Digesters solve a nasty, unhealthy problem while delivering value to users on multiple levels: clean fuel, healthier homes and better crops.”
Chestnut Mountain: “5,686 acres on the Cumberland Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee were donated to The Nature Conservancy to protect and improve the resiliency and carbon sequestration rates of the forest, protect the local drinking water supply and vast animal and plant biodiversity as well as provide a platform for education and research.
The project will sequester approximately 480,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide over the first 20-year crediting period.”
Community Tree Planting: “The International Small Group and Tree Planting Program (TIST) is a combined reforestation and sustainable development project. The project works with small groups of poor farmers to replant trees which counters the devastating effects of deforestation, poverty and drought. Since TIST’s inception in 1999, they have helped plant over 18 million trees in Tanzania, India, Kenya, and Uganda.”
For Peat’s Sake: “The Katingan Project reduced over 7.5 mm tonnes of CO₂ each year by protecting and restoring 157,000 hectares of the peat swamp ecosystem, one of the largest remaining of its kind.”
Grasslands, Water & Wildlife : “Africa is home to 17% of the world’s forests but is losing them at four times the rate of the global average. A critical wildlife corridor, Chyulu Hills is located between two national parks, Amboseli and Tsavo, in southeastern Kenya and has been severely impacted by overgrazing, drought, deforestation, and forest degradation. This project aims to preserve the 410,000-hectare expanse while also preventing the emission of about 18 million tonnes of CO₂ over the 30-year life of the project.”
Hawk Mountain: “Sequesters 47,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year or more. The commercial timber resource on the property has substantial value, but despite the value, Hawk Mountain’s leadership has elected to establish a carbon project on the property, limiting development and harvesting, and ensuring the health of their mature forest for years to come.”
May Ranch Grasslands Protection: “Grasslands are one of Earth’s great carbon reservoirs, storing over one-third of all carbon, almost as much carbon as all forests and rainforests combined. But our grasslands are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Half of the grasslands in the U.S. have already been lost to agricultural or other commercial development, and that disturbing trend continues. Recent studies find that, in the US alone, over 1 million acres of grasslands are being lost every year, a rate greater that the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
It is estimated that grasslands store as much as 200 tonnes of carbon per acre. Grasslands in the US alone cover an area of 8.4 million acres, more than 8 times the size of California. With so much carbon stored in so vast an expanse, the numbers are compelling. But when grasslands are disturbed, as much as 50% – 70% of the carbon stored in the soil and biomass can be released as CO₂ into the atmosphere.
Bottom Line: By protecting grasslands, this project keeps that carbon in the ground where it belongs, preserving a vast and naturally sustainable resource in the fight against climate change.”
Methane Capture Program: “In Maharashtra, 68.9% of rural households currently rely on firewood for cooking. The local community meets this demand by cutting local forests and selling the wood in the marketplace. Biodigesters break down cow dung into methane gas provide a cleaner, more efficient, and sustainable fuel compared to that of a traditional wood-burning stove. This transition to clean gas curbs the demand for wood and reduces the cutting of local forests in an already resource-constrained region.
As the population continues to grow in rural India and access to commercial fuels does not, the community’s dependence on biomass deepens. This ever growing dependency plus the value of capturing methane, a short-lived but powerful climate pollutant, increases the value of projects such as this.”
Mirador Clean Cookstoves: “Local Hondurans, who marvel at these stoves, say it best. They call the stoves Dos Por Tres, which is slang for “In an Instant.” In an instant, these stoves save wood, save time, eliminate toxic smoke from the household, and help the planet by saving miles of forests and reducing carbon emissions. Each family stove saves about 3 tonnes of carbon pollution from entering the atmosphere each year – resulting in nearly two million tonnes of carbon dioxide reduced by the project. Bottom Line: 400,000 rural families still need a new stove that will improve their lives and the environment. Your support ensures that each family will get one, and when they do, every year another 3 tonnes of carbon pollution will stop warming the planet.”
Native Alaskans Saving Lands: “This 8,618 acre forest project located in the Southeast Alaska panhandle on the Prince of Wales Island will sequester 650,000 tonnes of emissions over the first 20 years of its 40-year life. Klawock Heenya consists of coastal rainforest of conifer, western hemlock-Sitka spruce and western redcedar-hemlock forests in Southeast Alaska.”
Sea of Change: “In Myanmar, only 16% of the original mangrove forest remains along the coastline. The destruction of mangrove forests has largely been caused by human activity since poverty-stricken locals do what they can to survive. Mangroves are cut down for use as firewood or for clearing the way for farming rice, palm oil, or shrimp. The destruction has decimated the blue carbon ecosystem and has destroyed the very resource that protects and nourishes communities. This project is working to restore those forests. 5 million new mangrove trees have been planted with hopes of planting another 5 million trees in the next two years. The project also works with the local population to adapt to more sustainable practices.”
While we are thrilled to have taken this critical step to better understand Driftless Angler’s carbon footprint, and now the real work begins. We understand that the most important thing we can do as a business is to reduce our footprint, and we have already begun executing a major greenhouse gas reduction strategy. We know that carbon offsets are not the perfect solution, but feel strongly that we need lots of imperfect solutions if we are going to win the battle against climate change. We are just trying to do our part as beneficiaries of the resource.
Follow us on our sustainability journey as we strive to reduce our carbon footprint to protect what we love!
