Sustainability

Understanding that climate change, as a result of human activity and the burning of fossil fuels, would be a problem for humanity is not new to me. I was teaching this to my physics students in the 1990s. By 2018 I could see that it would still be some time before the necessary political will would emerge to tackle climate change in the US. I had already made significant changes in my personal life to reduce my contribution to climate change, but felt I needed to do more and so began to focus on Lamplighters’ carbon dioxide emissions too. 

Since 2018 I have made an annual estimate of the carbon dioxide emissions that may be attributed to Lamplighters’ business activity. My goals in this have been to both identify ways in which Lamplighters may directly reduce emissions (preferred) and estimate those emissions that have not been eliminated so that they may be offset by sponsoring emissions reductions elsewhere around the globe. In summarizing, here, Lamplighters’ carbon dioxide emissions offsets for 2022 and 2023 I realize that, at its heart, this story is more about navigating sensationalistic headlines, welcoming criticism of our most cherished ideas, and always, always, looking for the silver lining.

For 2023 Lamplighters’ carbon emissions were primarily from office space (about 75%) with the remainder coming from a small amount of hybrid vehicle driving (665 miles) and “secondary” emissions associated with products or services Lamplighters purchases. I have, for now, exhausted much of the low hanging fruit for reducing Lamplighters’ direct emissions (okay, I need to ride the electric bike more this year), so the remaining emissions are offset by purchasing carbon credits. 

Lamplighters has routinely purchased extra carbon credits beyond what is needed to offset our own emissions. Partly I do this because, for a small business, the cost of precisely calculating our emissions would be prohibitive, and so I aim to make a reasonable estimate of emissions and then purchase more carbon credits than strictly necessary. The other reason I take this approach is that there are years of Lamplighters’ emissions that predate my first carbon emissions assessment in 2018 and I intend to offset those emissions by purchasing extra credits over time. In each of the last three years Lamplighters has purchased enough carbon credits to offset about two and a half times the businesses’ annual emissions.

I very much look forward to reading about (and supporting) heartwarming projects that combine emissions reduction with other tangible benefits around the world. I must admit, for Lamplighters’ 2022 and 2023 credits I rather fell in love with “Improved Cookstoves for Rural Zambia,” a project offered through the Gold Standard (a leading certifier of carbon credits). The project is nicely summarized here: https://marketplace.goldstandard.org/products/tasc-improved-cookstoves-rural-zambia

So, when a Guardian (a UK based newspaper) article came across my screen on January 23rd of 2024 titled “Cookstove Carbon Offsets Overstate Climate Benefit by 1,000%, Study Finds,” by Patrick Greenfield, it was a bit of a smack in the proverbial chops. Intuitively I knew that the Gold Standard could not be that far off, so I was relieved to read on to find, “Gold Standard, a major carbon credit certifier, disputed the findings of the study. The researchers found that Gold Standard produced the best-quality method for producing offsets, which directly monitored use of stoves, and was only 1.5 times over-credited.” Overstating the climate benefit by 150% (if the researchers are indeed correct) was certainly a lot less worrying than 1000% and since in each of the last three years I have purchased slightly more than 250% of Lamplighters’ carbon emissions in credits I did not feel compelled to go back to purchase additional credits. All things considered, there is no buyer’s regret on my part, and I will happily consider the Improved Cookstoves in Rural Zambia project among Lamplighters’ options for 2024. 

Fortunately, Patrick Greenfield’s article was more balanced that his title. The latter, I feel, over simplified and sensationalized the subject. After all, how many readers did not go beyond the headline and simply took away a sweeping conclusion that all cookstove carbon credits or perhaps all carbon credits are wildly overstated in benefits?! As a Guardian subscriber, I was more than a little disappointed that the Guardian editors did not suggest a more balanced title. For those that did go beyond the headline there was some positivity to be found within the article. It reminded us that the carbon credit system does need to be monitored and critiqued for it be effective and improved, so I am thankful (despite the rude shock over my morning coffee) for the researchers providing valuable feedback to the carbon credit certifiers.

The Guardian article can be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/23/clean-cookstove-carbon-offsets-overstate-climate-benefit-by-1000-percent

Rich Keffert, May 2024.

Disclosure: Content in this material is for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.  This is not an endorsement for Improved Cookstoves for Rural Zambia”, links provided do not necessarily reflect the views of LPL Financial. Tracking #: 584263-1

Dear Clients,

While it is a little late in coming, I just wanted to share a little good news regarding Lamplighters 2021 carbon emissions.  

Overall carbon emissions dropped again, this time from 2.8 to 2.59 metric tons of carbon dioxide. While the contribution from office heating and cooling is both significant and constant (and effectively outside Lamplighters’ control), the drop can be attributed to a further decline in business miles driven, from 988 to 589, thanks to Zoom and the e-bike. This transportation reduction was slightly offset by the use of a new emissions calculator (https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx) that allows for the inclusion of secondary emissions from the products and services Lamplighters purchases, but I was pleased to see that even with this extra component overall emissions declined 7.5%.

As in prior years, Lamplighters has elected to more than offset these emissions by purchasing carbon credits for 7 metric tons of carbon from goldstandard.org, more than two and a half times our own 2021 emissions. Our rational in doing so is to help offset Lamplighters emissions from prior to the initiation of our sustainability efforts in 2018.

The carbon credits purchased from goldstandard.org support the project: Terraclear – Clean water access for families in Laos. This program provides water filtration equipment to rural families in Laos. The water filters provide clean water and consequently eliminate the otherwise necessary step of boiling water to make it safe. Boiling water in most rural households in Laos is done on an open fire. As you can imagine this is a very inefficient way to boil water and so removing this step reduces carbon emissions, stress on the surrounding forest (from firewood harvesting), and exposure to smoke for the household.

Thank you for your business. Together we have made a difference. 

If you would like to learn more about the Terraclear – Clean water access for families in Laos program, please visit the following webpage:

Terraclear – Clean water access for families in Laos

Cheers,

Disclosure: Content in this material is for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.  This is not an endorsement for Terraclear – Clean water access for families in Laos program, links provided do not necessarily reflect the views of LPL Financial. Tracking #: 1-05319994. 

Dear Clients,

I am pleased to share an update on carbon emissions for Lamplighters Investment Advisors during 2020.

Without a doubt, 2020 was the year of Zoom and the electric bicycle. As we began to socially distance in early 2020 clients quickly took to Zoom meetings, enabling me to avoid both long out of town trips and many short trips to the office.

Like many small businesses during COVID, I briefly considered eliminating the office space altogether, but felt that a proportion of clients (both current and future) feel more comfortable with a bricks and mortar presence. So, having made the decision to retain the office space, I still needed to travel to the office periodically to collect mail and water my rather lonely plants. Fortunately for my carbon emission goals I was able to make many of these journeys by electric bicycle. This avoided about 988 miles traveled by car in 2020 and provided me with some very welcome exercise. Combining the impact of working from home for much of the year with the use of the electric bike reduced Lamplighters’ carbon emissions from transportation by a whopping 70% to 0.504 tonnes* of CO2.

Overall, Lamplighters’ total business emissions for 2020 were about 2.8 tonnes of CO2, down about 30% from 2019, and were more than offset by purchasing carbon credits for 4.0 tonnes of CO2. The carbon credits this year were purchased from goldstandard.org to support the Kenya Biogas Programme.

The Kenya Biogas Programme provides biodigesters to individual households. These biodigesters provide a way for households with livestock to reduce their dependence on polluting firewood and expensive fossil fuels. Cooking on biogas is fast and smokeless, improving family health, especially among women and children. Leftover slurry from the biogas process is an excellent organic fertilizer that improves crop yields – and having more vegetables to sell, provides families with extra income

Thank you for your business. Together we have made a difference.

If you would like to learn more about the Kenya Biogas Programme, please visit the following webpage:
https://marketplace.goldstandard.org/collections/projects/products/kenya-biogas-programme

*Note: a “tonne” refers to a metric tonne (1000kg).

Cheers.

Disclosure: Content in this material is for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. This is not an endorsement for Kenya Biogas Programme, links provided do not necessarily reflect the views of LPL Financial. Tracking #: 1-05128355.

Dear Clients,

With 2019 taxes comfortably in the rearview mirror, I felt it was time to deliver on my 2019 goals for being carbon
neutral as a business. This email is a summary of how Lamplighters performed from a carbon emissions perspective and
how un-avoided emissions were offset.

Lamplighters has two main sources of carbon emissions. The largest, at 57% of the total, are the emissions associated
with heating, cooling, lighting, and electrical power for the office space. All these items are included within the office
rent, so there is no simple way to ascertain any changes from year to year. I estimate these emissions using a generic
calculator and square feet of office space, and the figure remains the same from one year to the next. While I cannot
measure the impact of any proactive changes the business makes on the office space related emissions, it is no reason
not to make changes. During 2019 I left overhead lights off on bright days and used e-signature forms to a much greater
extent (reducing paper use significantly).

The other main source of emissions, at 42% of the total, is that associated with travel by car to meet with out of town
clients, and trips between my home office and the primary office in Charlottesville. These emissions amounted to about
1.68 tonnes* of CO2 and were similar to that from 2018. While progress was made over the second half of the year with
bicycle commuting between offices once per week, and also introducing some remote clients to Zoom meetings, these
were roughly offset by increased travel to help new clients in the Richmond area.

Lamplighters’ total business emissions for 2019 were 4.0 tonnes of CO2 and were more than offset by purchasing carbon
credits for 6.0 tonnes of CO2 (150% of Lamplighters’ emissions). The carbon credits this year were purchased from
goldstandard.org to support a project introducing and maintaining solar cookers within a refugee camp in Chad. The
introduction of the cookers has multiple benefits: carbon-free cooking, reduced deforestation around the camp,
improved safety for the women and girls that would have been collecting firewood in remote areas, and providing work
and new skills for the refugee camp residents. During my years as a physics teacher, I assigned students a project to
design and build solar cookers, so this project naturally resonated with me!

Looking ahead through the lens of the pandemic, I see reasons to be optimistic about Lamplighters’ future carbon
emissions. The lockdown has revealed how effective working from the home office several days a week can be –
eliminating a significant proportion of trips between offices. On those days that I do travel between offices, the
electrically assisted bicycle is more often that not the mode of choice. Also, the pandemic has made the use of Zoom
meetings an option that clients more readily embrace, so it may retain some staying power post-pandemic – reducing
the longer out-of-town trips by car.

Thank you for your business. Together we have made a difference.

If you would like to learn more about the Solar Cooking for Refugee Families in Chad project, please visit the following
webpage:
https://www.goldstandard.org/projects/solar-cooking-refugee-families-chad

*Note: a “tonne” refers to a metric tonne (1000kg).

Cheers.

Do you find it difficult to carve time out of your schedule for exercise? Would you like to do something about global warming? How about accomplishing both with one fell swoop? If, like me, you have readily dismissed the idea of riding a bicycle to work, then this article is absolutely for you. For the last fourteen years of commuting around Charlottesville by car, I have never seriously considered bicycling to work. There were just too many obvious hurdles, and each insurmountable. A nine-and-a-half-mile journey, one way, would take too much of my time. The trip would be unsafe due to a lack of suitable and well-connected bike lanes. And then the weather would not cooperate. Too hot in the summer, and I would arrive at work all sweaty. Too cold and dark in the winter, or simply raining, and my work clothes would get soaked. Until one simple question changed everything.

That question was: could I bicycle to work just twice a month? When your mindset changes from assuming the impossibility to looking for solutions, it is amazing what can happen. Finding two days of nice weather in a month would not be hard, and I suspected the time obstacle could be overcome with an electric bike – increasing average speed and shortening travel time. Minutes could be trimmed (thanks to the bicycle mode on Google Maps) with a route through town that shortened the trip to six and a half miles. The route lacked bicycle lanes in some stretches, so safety was a concern. But then two impediments fell to one idea. It’s July and it’s hot, so starting with first daylight would not only be cool but also quiet on the roads!

I decided to test the concept with my old bicycle. Fifteen years of dust were wiped away and a bicycle shop gave it a good service. The day before my ride, I left a clean set of work clothes at the office. Setting out at 6:15 am the temperature was a refreshing 68 degrees, and the roads were practically mine. It was a real joy to be on a bicycle again, and I rode with the mantra “safety before speed.” Much that I like to go fast, I made it a top priority to carefully consider safety at every point in the ride. This meant walking some short stretches off-road and taking a slightly longer alternative path that simply felt safer than the shorter path. Much to my surprise, after two iterations, I had the journey time down to 35 minutes – and without any electrical assistance!

As a high schooler growing up in England, I had to ride to school every day, rain or shine. To be honest, I hated it. But when I don’t have to ride to work every day, I look forward to cycling. It gives me a great cardio workout and a much greener commute all wrapped up in one lovely feel-good bundle. My flirtation with the electric bike is far from over. I think an electric bike will shorten my commute significantly, but still allow me to get a respectable workout. More importantly, I now see the electric bike as a way to stretch two rides a month to four. There will certainly be new challenges in other seasons, but with a problem-solving attitude, anything is possible.