Strategy

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This should be updated ... originally written 2022. Also check the manifesto.

Mission and Vision

Our vision is for a movement that shows how everybody can have the knowledge and means to control their own CO2 emissions in a meaningful, significant way. We want to demonstrate how individual action on climate change can contribute to fighting climate change on a personal, local, national and global level.

Our mission is to promote local action by groups of individuals, using real data, and supporting the concepts of fair carbon allowances, carbon labelling and advocacy for the controlled reduction of fossil fuel production via a carbon allowance-based currency. We plan to build a movement and replace public reference to "carbon taxes" with "carbon allowances".

Summary

Climate change presents a deep-rooted, extensive and multi-faceted challenge to today's globalised, free market economy. The one key point that must be recognised by those who drive the economy on is that the climate science is clear: any attempt to get through this crisis without halting the increase of atmospheric CO2 could destroy today's society. The root of the problem is that most people are not aware of how much CO2 they create, and are even less aware of what the costs of those emissions are. This affects not just citizens but business, public services, governments and even international institutions, it stymies all attempts to tackle the climate crisis and plays into the hands of those who want to see the energy transition fail. Citizens blame governments and business, while businesses point to the demands of their customers and the costs they must bear, and governments cite the short term priorities of voters and lobbyists. Meanwhile the risks to the planet grow ever greater and the cynical await the first major calamity which will spur the world into action.

EcoCore proposes a different approach in which carbon allowances are given on an equal per capita basis to citizens, to create a carbon currency which business must use to give or take in payment for all the carbon in their supply chains, in a step-wise fashion reaching ultimately back to the fossil fuel producers who supply carbon into the economy. The use of this currency in tokens for every transaction in the economy would make the actual CO2 emissions of every saleable item or service directly visible on the item's price tag next to the cash price. The trading of carbon tokens by people with excess or companies needing more would result in a tangible carbon price, broadly accepted across nations implementing the carbon currency, reflecting collective efforts to decarbonise their economies.

Background and Organisational Structure

EcoCore was founded in 2021 in the UK to promote sustainability with a focus on the climate crisis, amongst citizens, businesses and government. EcoCore works in principle in conjunction with the charity EcoCounts to widen geographically and thematically the local, citizen-focused aims of the charity, so therefore there are 2 separate legal entities - a CIO (charitable incorporated organisation, i.e. has charitable status) and a CIC (community interest company), which will carry out all the non-charitable business.

EcoCounts' main objective is to build a local group of activists who watch their carbon footprint and sustainability, with a long term aim to create a personal carbon trading group, a carbon footprint and carbon account app, and good recognition amongst local businesses and government, and to create a blueprint which can be adopted in other locations.

EcoCore intends to spread the movement far and wide, to promote academic and political acceptance of the carbon allowances and currency approach, while running communications and fundraising campaigns.

Market Analysis

What is the market for our approach to the crises of the 21st Century? How do we promote the socio-economic concept of sustaining over exploiting?

Our answer is formulated from a range of inputs drawn from the psychology of human behaviour, the theory of campaigning, a heterodox economics of climate change, markets and capitalism, and the science of climate modelling and forecasting. This wrap-around concept lends EcoCore a unique value proposition, but for EcoCore to win financial support from under the noses of well-established organisations still requires a better & more complete understanding of public beliefs than theirs, and how to frame this new narrative in a way that inspires people to give their time as participants, their money as donors and their support when influential. We are advocating a new paradigm.

The essential tool on which EcoCore builds its approach is an intervention in our economy - personal carbon allowances - that meets the demands of many and with the carbon currency, seems daunting different. We must convince many that such systemic change is feasible, effective, fair and beneficial. To create the paradigm shift in the public mind, it is essential to create a compelling narrative. EcoCore must combine insights into the functioning of carbon allowances as a carbon currency, with illustrations of its merits, against a backdrop of the dangers society faces from climate change. EcoCore's vision has many merits on different levels, some which affect individuals, some impact business, others apply to government and even nation states and global organisations. Not only can individuals be inspired by the potential of EcoCore's offering, but businesses and governments must be approached for financial support with proposals that apply at those levels.

To individuals, the EcoCore narrative will be most compelling to those who both want a fair solution, have an understanding of how the modern economy functions, and are clear about the risks of the more catastrophic scientific prognoses. This rules out many on the political left who have an instinctive dislike of market-based mechanisms, and those on the right who have a misinformed distrust of catastrophic scientific warnings. We refer here to donors and supporters, rather than participants in the EcoCounts group.

To businesses, the EcoCore concept offers a future with clarity and purpose where they can play a strong part in ushering in the energy transition, by managing their own carbon budgets, controlling their own CO2 emissions, and publicising their efforts without danger of greenwash accusations. It compares well against the current carbon markets and industry trade bodies that attempt to provide some sort of business solution. It offers a framework for self-management against the current actual or threatened regulatory burden and confusion concerning carbon accounting and emissions responsibility. EcoCore or EcoCounts can offer a sponsorship package where the branding displays a company's commitment to a climate-secure future based either on EcoCore's proposals or locally with EcoCounts, on more direct involvement with the group and its activities, e.g. through carbon labelling.

Governments, especially of small nations looking for radical change, should appreciate a carbon currency system that reveals a citizen-oriented, market-based carbon price. Such an instrument would have utility for any party seeking to make hard deals in climate negotiations. To approach such governments would require inspired networking, or even simply a direct approach via London embassies. The specific funding requests could cover high level advocacy, ongoing academic research into economic assumptions underlying the concept, and professional analysis and publication of the expected benefits to such small nations.

Grant-giving bodies may be convinced and provide funding especially for academic collaborations with the EcoCounts carbon footprinting efforts, and modelling of the carbon currency monetary system. The challenge with grants though is that the usual limited application process may not allow effective communication of the whole reasoning behind our approach, or of the full scope of impacts.

Resources & References

Why the energy transition must be from the bottom up: https://climateoutreach.org/trust-petersberg-climate-dialogue/

Competitive Analysis for Funding

  1. Primary competitors: grassroots organisations having local groups and most have lobbying activities
  2. Competitive products/services
  3. Risks and opportunities in competitive market
    • Failure to identify most engaged audience
    • Failure to build audience generally
    • Not enough time & resources to exploit opportunities
    • Catalogue of benefits in total difficult to communicate, each benefit on its own not strong enough
    • Radical nature of approach requires paradigm shift for many donors
    • Extreme existential risks for civilisation justify radical approach but difficult to communicate
    • Complexity and unfamiliarity daunting for average citizens
    • Several potential funding channels, in total require high effort
    • Much funding available is not for marketing, growth, core funding
    • Don't have high profile sponsor or patron
    • EcoCore is the only organisation campaigning on this (risks lack of credibility, but potentially lots of frustrated support out there waiting for this)
    • Plenty of opportunities for collaboration & synergy with other organisations
    • Climate change is getting continually worse so narrative should become slowly more convincing (it already is since 2018, in my opinion)
    • Opportunity for publicity through uniqueness and novelty if we can generate numbers for people and impact
    • Concept is broad and all-encompassing, can find stories anywhere (mirror image of risk of doing too much)
  4. Recent or emerging changes in the industry
    • extreme weather, floods, droughts, wildfires causing tangible, obvious dangers, widely reported in the media and blamed on climate change, which concerns people
    • general belief that nothing can be done in policy to control demand is beginning to change
    • calls for "radical" and "systemic" change are becoming more frequent, forceful and persuasive (Attenborough, UN chief)
    • More and more disinformation, denial, populism, e.g. on Twitter under Musk
    • Understanding of public attitudes and marketing approaches increasing e.g. Britain Talks Climate https://climateoutreach.org/britain-talks-climate/
    • Ambition for the voluntary carbon markets, technological solutions like CCS and free markets in general starting to diminish. Acceptance of need for strong policy growing
    • Extreme polarisation in Britain under Truss, with faith in deconstruction of government, vs Monbiot label of neo-liberal ultras - continuation of Trump populism, also seen in EU states
    • On the other hand, some polarising issues are beginning to be discussed with less extremism e.g. nuclear in Germany
  5. Specific description of competitive advantage and value of proposed product or service
    • the EcoCounts concept is unique in that there is no other known local group anywhere in the UK measuring their own carbon footprint and aiming to adopt personal carbon trading
    • the EcoCore strategy should appeal broadly with the narrative of its overall approach:
      • to citizens with concern for personal and govt action
      • to business people with desire for clarity, transparency and predictability i.e. carbon tokens are real, measurable, permanent, additional, independently verified, harmless, unique and fungible
      • to political, national and international climate negotiators needing an objective framework
    • an extensive catalogue of diverse benefits
    • equitable, both within countries and internationally
    • freedom of choice instead of prescriptive nanny state, both for citizens and for business (except the fossil fuel industry)
    • economy-wide carbon labelling & accounting completed for each product or service by the vendor
    • strong carbon price signal, market-based carbon price discovery
    • strong lever of control over fossil fuel production
    • one policy covers many sectors with all-encompassing economic mechanism
    • robust, transparent and universally applicable mechanism for emissions trading schemes and carbon offset projects
    • single point of governance
    • cross-region & border compatibility
    • inclusive of CH4, NOx, CFCs & other non-carbon GHGs
    • business-oriented, offering an approach to accelerate commercial adaptation to the energy transition, in contrast to many proposals & policies which view business as the problem
    • supply-side control method within a whole package of benefits - not limiting, draconian rationing or nationalisation

Operations

  1. Management structure: board of directors (need more directors), volunteers team manager
  2. Staffing plan and key personnel: volunteer staff (copywriting, IT, video, social media, fundraising), moving to permanent & salaried when critical & funded
  3. The prospect of combating climate change via carbon allowances as a carbon currency is a new, under-researched and challenging concept. Therefore the campaign has multiple lines of attack, both for fundraising, and for raising awareness and outreach, which in turn boosts fundraising.
    • EcoCounts - grassroots group involvement in carbon footprint reduction and personal carbon trading
    • Public communications - how citizens need to be at the heart of decision-making, building their trust to accelerate socio-economic change
    • Academic - discussion and research into carbon footprints, PCT, carbon allowances and currency concept
    • Business - business and industry outreach on carbon labelling, carbon accounting, carbon currency
    • Political - parties and movements interest
    • Global - climate NGOs and national climate negotiators involvement
Budget 2023
Company Task Days Day Cost Other Cost Total
EcoCounts Emissions spreadsheet - database input, accounts, consolidation 22 5500
EcoCounts Outreach and participant recruitment 58 14500
EcoCounts Psychology programme from Chimp Management 53 13250 10000
EcoCounts Group communications & team-building programme 3 750
EcoCounts Incentives programme 6 1500 1500
EcoCounts Blueprint for creating new groups and scaling 6 1500
EcoCore App and database to replace EcoCounts spreadie 25 6250
Politics Political party and grassroots movements outreach 10 2500
EcoCore Social media & SEO outreach, donations & crowdfunding campaign 156 39000 5000
Business Business sponsorship search 18 4500 1125
EcoCounts Grant-giving fundraising drive 18 4500 1125
Academic Carbon currency and PCT academic outreach, research programme 113 28250
Global networking & outreach at international climate negotiation level 18 4500
EcoCore Overall strategy development (campaign strategy, theory of change) 23 5750 5000
EcoCore Admin, maintenance & governance 24 6000
Total 543 138,250 23,750 162,000

Evaluation and Assessment

  • Quantifiable financial goals as per budget, £162K required
  • Quantifiable mission goals:
    • completion of carbon footprint spreadsheet with accurate dataset
    • EcoCounts group membership numbers +/- 50 people
    • effective group psychology programme for commitment, motivation & team bonding
    • contact and reaction with political parties, movements & NGOs
    • digital outreach via newsletters, search engines and social media
    • contact with business and industry via trade shows, presentations, business press coverage with commerce-oriented narrative(s)
    • grant applications programme with significant number of applications, or targeted % of total raised
    • creation of academic collaboration on personal emissions reduction & PCT
    • creation of economic modelling & simulations for carbon currency monetary systems
    • contact and reaction with climate negotiators - see NationStates
  • Monitoring and evaluation strategy - recruit for EcoCore board of directors & provide monthly / quarterly presentations

Financial Plan and Projections

Revenue and expenses with key assumptions.

  • Start up costs: laptops for 3 staff
  • Capital requirements: 1 year salary for 3 staff
  • Grants, public subscriptions, business sponsorship, one-off fundraisers/crowdfunding
  • Pro forma balance sheet for start up???
  • Cash flow summary or projection???
  • Assumptions???

Framed in Terms of Carbon Accounting

The Landscape

  1. Anthropogenic greenhouse gases and environmental degradation have unbalanced the atmospheric carbon cycle and are causing accelerating climate change. Society urgently needs to find a way to reverse this process to avoid the extensive threats to our standard of living and the significant risks to our future civilisation.
  2. Carbon accounting is a process used to identify where and in what quantity CO2 or CO2 equivalent gases are produced or removed from the atmosphere. This is a necessary first step in climate change mitigation.
  3. Interest in carbon accounting is growing because:
    • the state in many countries is increasing the coverage of emissions trading schemes which places a direct cost on CO2 emissions based on audited disclosures
    • investors demand disclosure as states threaten to introduce and increase taxes, penalties and bans on CO2 emissions, which could cause their investments or potential investments to decline in value
    • consumer preference for low emissions greener products and services is growing
    • negative emissions are increasingly enabling income generation
  4. Currently, different carbon accounting methodologies exist, some small scale and local involving personal carbon footprint tracking, some mid-scale where best practice defines scopes 1, 2 & 3 of corporate responsibility, and some international in terms of cumulative national emissions. Most methods are highly debated and only a limited number at any level are actually agreed by all participants.
    • One example of debate around CO2 emissions results from some parties arguing that their responsibility for emissions does not extend to that emitted during the production of the goods and services they consume. Others see these emissions as cumulative, which must all be recorded to demonstrate the total impact of a goods or service by the final consumer. With CO2 removal, it is for instance difficult to prevent double-counting: some states will claim the removals that have already generated income for private business.
  5. Carbon emissions accounting is undertaken most stringently by commercial operations where significant quantities of CO2 emissions or removal are concerned. Most will engage a third party auditor to verify the emissions data. The lower the quantity of emissions produced, the less stringent and the more based on self-reporting the accounting tends to be. Here are the chief categories with some examples:
    • industrial manufacturers with large energy use subject to state regulatory emissions trading schemes, e.g. participants in CARB C&T, RGGI, EU ETS, based on regulatory methodologies
    • voluntary carbon market exchanges, e.g. Verra, Gold Standard, who create methodologies for carbon emissions reduction accounting and verification to allow commodification of CO2 emissions avoidance and atmospheric removal. Many large and small players.
    • corporations with strong ESG policies operating in the voluntary carbon markets, e.g. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, to offset CO2 emissions with carbon credits, basing disclosure on audit methodologies from non-government standards bodies, e.g. SBTi
    • NGO, government & supra-national bodies run carbon accounting analyses on national level CO2 emissions and removals, particularly for climate negotiations, national carbon trading, development aid.
    • direct air capture, carbon capture, CO2 removal technology and implementation by companies concentrating on collection and often sequestration of CO2 as a service, e.g. Carbon Plan (Stripe, Climeworks, Shopify)
    • The customers are the organisations that either pay for their emissions or are rewarded for CO2 removals.
  6. Other stakeholders are
    • governments that impose CO2 emissions regulatory control
    • carbon market exchanges which create accounting methodologies for CO2 removals
    • standards bodies which create accounting methodologies for CO2 emissions
    • scientific research institutes which advance the understanding and coverage of both emissions and removals, e.g. in natural environments (marine, soils, forests), in non-CO2 greenhouse gases
    • third party technical capacities which continually evolve and improve e.g. remote sensing of forest cover or methane emissions, isotope analysis of carbon-14 content as evidence of emission origins
    • regional trading blocks that impose tariffs and carbon border adjustment mechanisms

EcoCore Carbon Accounting Concept

Current carbon accounting practice has some major issues.

  • Firstly for approximately 80% of the economy, carbon accounting is carried out in the absence of binding regulation. Some 10% is covered by emissions trading schemes and another 10% by various other forms of carbon tax. Only organisations that invest heavily in their public image are actually under pressure to engage, and many of these are selling off their high emissions businesses to smaller private operations that have no pressure to demonstrate their decarbonisation plans. This free rider problem inhibits growth and development of the whole sector.
  • A second problem in carbon accounting is that the definition of responsibility in terms of scopes 1, 2 and 3 encompasses under scope 3 a broad umbrella of indirect emissions over which the CO2-emitting organisation cannot realistically claim any significant control. This is significant because scope 3 emissions typically make up 80% of a company’s emissions. Due to the uniqueness of every organisation’s scope 3 emissions catalog, the task of standardising, verifying and certifying such emissions would be huge and the potential for legal dispute equally so.
  • Also relevant, especially relevant due to the urgency demanded by climate change, is timeliness. Under current carbon accounting methodologies, an organisation in a supply chain runs an annual carbon audit - or even less frequent. Improvements in the carbon footprint and changes in the price are only passed on at the change in the next audit. Putting a brake on innovation and inventiveness by up to a year seriously impacts the whole energy transition.
  • To produce carbon credits, a range of factors must be met, including measurability, permanence, non-additionality, verifiability, harmlessness and uniqueness. There are huge amounts of carbon credits on the market which are very low quality when measured by these standards. However due to the size of the market and the fact that many of buyers holding these credits can influence the standards bodies, there is a resulting inertia against improvements and development.
  • These low quality carbon credits are still sold and command an appropriately low price. However the result is that the price of carbon credits does not solely reflect the amount of CO2 emissions offset and the perceived risk or benefit of having that offset. It also represents the quality, which dilutes the price signal.

EcoCore proposes a nationwide all-inclusive carbon accounting framework based on a regular equal per capita allowance of carbon tokens for individual citizens. This feeds carbon tokens into the economy via a carbon price on all goods and services, creating a dual currency monetary system. At the origin of control, fossil fuel producers would charge all customers not only in money, but also in carbon tokens at a price denominated in kilos of CO2. Every step of every supply chain between the fossil fuel industry and citizen consumer would involve dual transactions of tokens as well as money.

Because every product or service that a business purchases would then carry a carbon price that the vendor will demand payment for, the business knows its total carbon footprint from its spending. All scopes of GHG emissions are covered and no further auditing is necessary. E.g. at its simplest, in the purchase of fuel (GHG protocol scope 1), or the least direct (scope 3) in the engagement of services from a separate organisation which by necessity must charge carbon tokens appropriately as well as its fees, in order to pay cover its own carbon budget.

The carbon currency framework allows the impact of significant changes in CO2 emissions to ripple quickly through a supply chain as participants adjust their carbon prices in response on a real-time basis.

Combined with this inherent practicality for accounting, the clarity and visibility of the carbon price should excite imagination, innovation and entrepreneurship to accelerate the energy transition. Under every other scheme, the carbon price is incorporated into and often lost in the money price.

Can Carbon Accounting Succeed as a Private Venture?

In the absence of regulatory requirements to drive the energy transition across the economy, a voluntary carbon market has developed which enables business organisations to publish decarbonisation targets and to buy certified carbon offsets, which together serve to demonstrate the business’s commitment to net zero, boost their public image and satisfy their employees and stakeholders that they are serious about tackling climate change.

The stand-out problem faced by the voluntary carbon market is that it is not deemed effective enough in its short term impact on the decarbonisation of the economy and the reduction of CO2 emissions. The inertia in the economy and lack of progress in the carbon markets towards covering an effective percentage of business and industry is clearly leading to a near-term overshoot of the Paris Accord 1.5°C limit to global warming and increased risk of existential problems for society. Many citizens are alarmed by this prospect and their numbers include business leaders and policy makers as well. The question for the voluntary carbon market is what powerful structural change will emerge to drive the energy transition faster?

A primary facet of the current system of carbon accounting is that individual businesses are only responsible for the CO2 emissions under their control, in scopes 1 and 2 of the GHG Protocol. Scope 3 emissions by other operators in their supply chain only come into consideration under weaker rules denoted by “should be” and “where possible” clauses. The result is that businesses are not compelled to take great notice of those emissions beyond placing pressure on those other organisations, e.g. by threatening to replace the supplier in the supply chain. Under the EcoCore framework, every business would take the carbon tokens to pay into account when dealing with suppliers, as well as the money price of the goods and services offered to them in their supply chain. The decision would be business-critical, not just PR. Companies would have an obligation to balance their carbon budgets as well as their traditional finances. Any shortfall in carbon tokens would require purchasing them on the open market for cash.

Another issue is the free rider problem. Businesses operating in the same market as climate-concerned companies are free to take no action on their carbon budgets at all. They may suffer reputational damage, but that damage may not affect their bottom line. Why then would a business maximise emissions reduction efforts when it puts them at a disadvantage to their competitors? This problem is evidenced by the billion dollar climate disinformation industry which seeks to allay people’s and lawmakers’ fears about climate change, so manipulating the market into substantially undervaluing the cost of carbon to society and sparing the contributors to disinformation from the costs of emissions mitigation. Under the EcoCore framework, every company would be compelled to pay carbon tokens for CO2 emissions at any point in their supply chain. This levels the playing field.

It is clear that the extra set of accounts that is needed for carbon accounting would require back office staff for the operation, and considerable extra planning for business strategy. But the cost of this in comparison with the current costs of operating in the voluntary market and spending on carbon offsets are poorly researched.

The rules for operation of carbon drawdown and sequestration projects would change under the EcoCore framework because the government would become the buyer, paying for carbon dioxide removal in carbon tokens on a national basis. These carbon drawdown projects would enlarge the nation’s carbon budget, so therefore the government could pay them in appropriate amounts of carbon tokens, measured in kilos of CO2. This is a highly simplified explanation, but the end result is the profitability of carbon drawdown projects would be related to the price of carbon tokens and therefore related to the size of the national carbon budget and thus the urgency of the decarbonisation efforts. From the government perspective, the harder the desired effort, the smaller the carbon budget, the more expensive the carbon tokens, the more reward for CO2 removal.

Carbon Accounting is Likely More Effective If Citizens Are Included

The current system of carbon accounting regards each business organisation in effective isolation and attempts to quantify the CO2 emissions per organisation. This is of less use to climate-concerned consumers who are typically more interested in the actual emissions associated with any particular product that they buy rather than the impact of the whole company from whom they are buying. Often they will be unaware of which business they are buying from.

With current carbon accounting, a business would ideally identify and offset all their CO2 emissions, resulting in a product for sale that is completely carbon neutral. This however is far from the reality, and there is very little progress towards any form of carbon labelling where a company’s products display the CO2 emissions caused in their production.

The existence of carbon labels on products is the exception rather than the norm. Expecting consumers to show awareness of information that isn’t even presented to them is equivalent to hoping that a Weight Watcher will lose weight when they are unable to tell how many calories the food they choose contains.

With the EcoCore framework in place, citizens would educate themselves to become carbon literate and learn to manage their personal carbon allowance prudently. They would bring this knowledge into the workplace to the benefit of their employer, and vice versa. Hence citizens’ involvement in carbon accounting would complement business, so it can be expected to result in faster or more effective changes in the energy transition.

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