The crafts marketplace Etsy has transformed lives, providing easy access for artisans to reach a global market and a wealth of unique clothing, gifts, toys and decor to folks shopping from home. Now it plans to lead the way in eCommerce toward a net-zero emissions business model, the company announced this week.
Etsy pioneered lower-carbon online shipping in 2019, when it began to purchase carbon offsets to eliminate the impact of all its shipping emissions. The new goal, which will eliminate 50% of its direct CO2 emissions from operations and reduce its supply chain emissions by 13.5%. The remainder of the progress in 2030 will come from purchasing more carbon offsets for its Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
“Alongside the many actions we’re already taking to lessen our carbon footprint, we will be increasing our focus on working with sustainable vendors and suppliers, furthering our advocacy for the decarbonization of the logistics and transportation sector, and addressing opportunities for cleaner fulfillment,” Etsy CEO Josh Silverman wrote in a blog posting.
Etsy is also planning to establish a baseline for its marketplace’s sustainability this year, and through that work could begin to coach its far-flung sellers toward reducing their own carbon footprints, which fall into the leftover 86.5% of Etsy’s Scope 3 emissions in 2030. The company also developed a tool to estimate CO2 emissions from its online operations.
Etsy’s systemic approach could be used to measure sellers’ carbon contributions — both emissions and reductions. We would love to see them create incentives that encourage sellers to publicize their carbon footprints and the embodied carbon in products sold.
But for now, this recycled Earth911 t-shirt hobo shoulder purse on Etsy is looking pretty good.