Apple is a good example.

They are trying to do good, to be an ecosystem player in an ecosystem that is faltering and losing momentum.

Why is it faltering?

No one is watching, and there is nowhere to watch.

All data is fragmented.

Verified performance is stuck below the margins of Byzantine, consultant-copy filled sustainability reports.

We are in the process of cataloging these reports and it appears purposefully opaque, purposefully static despite existing in an ever increasingly transparent and fluid digital world.

In the case of Apple, the revelation of their 2021 vouluntary carbon market offset efforts is buried on page 112 of an ESG document they published in the Spring of 2022.

In a fine print footnote, they include a hyperlink away from the doc (does not open in a new window) that leads to the simple html landing page of the project they claim to support.

No receipt.

No smart contract.

No bells and whistles for this trillion dollar corporation's climate bookkeeping.

It is 99.9% likely that they did support this project, (and sent north 10M USD) with real meaningful dollars but two things:

1. The public, or really even their shareholders, can’t easily see and grasp that.
2. In relation to their gross GHG emissions (23,200,000 metric tons) this is a paltry sum.

And why should they pay more?

And how did they land on the credits they bought? (670,000)

One would assume to limit and level off an increase over the year prior.

2021: 23,200,000 metric tons

2020: 22,600,000 metric tons

How did they assign this initiative?

Likely an arbitrary decision within a closed boardroom door.

Doors need to open, and the public needs a seat at the table.

Our hope is the infrastructure carbontab aims to provide allows the general public a more prominent view into these conversations, if not with a voice, at least a set of eyes and ears for what is being said and a scorecard for what is being done.

*are you wondering what it would have cost in voluntary offsets for apple to hit their net zero goal in 2021?

let's use easy round numbers and bake in the 10M they already spent.

if the additional 22,530,000 credits cost $5 a pop we are looking at a little under 113M USD.

that's a big number to keep your word.

good thing they reported $20,720,000,000 in earnings LAST QUARTER alone.