Carbon Neutral Milk?

I heard an ad on my local NPR station yesterday that one of our local supermarkets now carries Carbon Neutral Milk. I was intrigued, emailed the supermarket, and the same day (WOW!) received a lengthy email back from Ann Radil, Head of Carbon Reduction at eatneutral.com. Despite the name by the way, they are totally focused on milk and derivative products like Half and Half.

As you probably know I'm a bit skeptical of today's offset markets, and 33 years after my work on the first carbon offset project in 1988, I really wonder whether we shouldn't have moved beyond the use of offsets by 2021. And the answer to that is clearly yes, but the reality also is that today's climate policies are nowhere close to seriously tackling climate change (I'm talking about today, not policy commitments decades into the future), which creates an opening for the continued use of carbon offsets.

Having worked on the first offset project (FYI - agroforestry in Guatemala), and having taken the first company carbon neutral in 1996 (FYI - Stonyfield Farm Yogurt), I've thought a lot about issues relating to carbon neutrality. Since I'm confident that eatneutral.com is a company trying to do the right thing by climate change, it got me to thinking about what I'd like to see when I visit their website (and for that matter the website of ANY company claiming to be or headed for carbon neutrality or "net zero"). So here goes, and in the points below I'm not in any way intending to pick on the folks at eatneutral.com. I doubt there's any organization that would perform particularly well against this list!

1. I'd like to find information about their carbon footprint. In this case, there is no information. The website notes they're working with a global expert on the footprint of dairy, which is great, but that's as far as it goes. Well, that's not entirely true. In their products section they list the footprint of each product in lbs of CO2 per pint or gallon, which is great, but there could be a much more sophisticated discussion.
2. I'd like to find information on their plans to reduce their carbon footprint, and what they think can be accomplished. I'd also like to find out how they're promoting these ideas within the industry so that they become best practice across the industry as quickly as possible.
3. I'd like to find information about the internal carbon price they're using in all of their decision-making. Right now there is no such information.
4. I'd like to find information about the offsets they're using to zero out their carbon footprint. In this case, there is no information beyond a discussion of the sector they're pulling the offsets from (dairy farms). There are three offset organizations with their logos on the website, one of which has a considerably stronger reputation than the other two, so the takeaway message is not clear. But no information about which offset standard they are using, much less any information about the offset projects themselves. I'd like to see a lot more information, and at least a link to the offset project documentation. I'd also like to see how they're encouraging the practices that are generating carbon offsets to become common practice, at which point they'd no longer be able to qualify to generate offsets. Companies should be actively working to change sector policies so as to eliminate future offsets from the same activities and sector.
5. I'd like to know how their offsets scored on a scale of 1-1000. I'll admit this is a bit unrealistic, since there is no such scoring system in common use. But such a scoring system has been around for many years (my team developed it when I was a Director at EcoSecurities 15 years ago). But because scoring offsets would be an existential threat to a substantial fraction of the market, no one ever picked it up. But wouldn't it be great if organizations really committed to doing the right thing with respect to offsets picked the scoring ball up and ran with it?
6. I'd like to see people visiting the website being educated about the perils of climate change. Right now the website seems to take that for granted, which isn't sufficient. Public education remains CRITICAL!
7. I'd like to see people visiting the website being informed that offsets (and carbon neutrality) aren't enough for really tackling change, and encouraging customers to get involved in tackling climate change in a variety of other ways.
8. I'd like to see a strong statement in favor of local, regional, national, and international climate policies, and information to consumers about how they can promote those policies.

That list seems long enough for now. What am I missing, and what might not belong on the list?

Here's the bottom line: as long as companies are going to be using offsets, and attempting to gain market advantage through the use of offsets, shouldn't we be setting the "expectations bar" considerably higher than we are today?