Today, you can buy a pair of sneakers partially made from carbon dioxide pulled out of the atmosphere. But measuring the carbon-reduction benefits of making that pair of sneakers with CO2 is complex. There’s the fossil fuel that stayed in the ground, a definite carbon savings. But what about the energy cost of cooling the CO2 into liquid form and transporting it to a production facility? And what about when your kid outgrows the shoes in six months and they can’t be recycled into a new product because those systems aren’t in place yet?
As companies try to reduce their carbon footprint, many are doing life cycle assessments to quantify the full carbon cost of products, from procurement of materials to energy use in manufacturing to product transport to user behavior and end-of-life disposal. It’s a mind-bogglingly difficult metric, but such bean-counting is needed to hold the planet to a livable temperature, says low-carbon systems expert Andrea Ramirez Ramirez of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
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