Carbon Neutrality 101: When Dunder Mifflin Went Carbon Neutral

Every week, there's a host of companies, cities, and countries announcing their commitment to reducing their net carbon emissions within a certain timeframe. With the threats of climate change getting more and more apparent with frequent forest fires, cyclones, changing rain patterns, and the likes, the pressure on organizations to curb their contribution to climate change is more than ever. What happens when Dunder Mifflin Scranton sit down to brainstorm on ways to go carbon neutral? If you haven’t watched The Office (the American one, to be more specific), you might wanna skip to the 4th paragraph.

(The Office theme song plays in the background :p)

Mr. Michael Scott, the Branch Manager of Dunder Mifflin (Scranton Branch) has been under immense stress for the past week. At the last meeting with the company’s shareholders, things were slipping out of hand. Losses were at an all-time high and the vexed shareholders accused the company administration of lethargy and neglect. In the heat of that moment, Michael snatched the microphone from the CEO, David Wallace’s hand and announced that Dunder Mifflin would go carbon neutral in the next 5 years. There was pin-drop silence in the auditorium. Carbon neutrality is fashionable these days and the shareholders took this announcement for a positive market sign and were thus happy. Cut to today morning, Michael gets a call from the corporate to come up with a plan to achieve carbon neutrality and present it at the head office within the next 5 days. Michael did what he did the best, called a meeting with all the employees in the conference room.

Mr. Dwight Schrute, the best salesperson at the office, who also ran a beetroot farm, suggested that Dunder Mifflin should invest in his farms. This could sequester carbon and give returns at the same time. Kelly Kapur suggested making donations to the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and then went on to rant about his new rumored girlfriend for the next ten minutes. Pam, the receptionist, suggested paying the indigenous Amazon forest tribes to preserve the forests while Ryan, the temp, suggested an outlandish start-up idea that got booed off and chaos broke out in the entire room. While Michael was all the more confused and couldn't pick from which idea to choose, Oscar, the accountant, was fed up with all the silly ideas and decided to take the initiative. Standing in front of the room now, Oscar began,

Achieving carbon neutrality is a complex and a long-term process that’s composed of several discrete actions.

Step 1 is to carry out a carbon audit for the company and estimate its current carbon footprint. This is done by dividing all the emissions of the company into 3 broad scopes:

• Scope 1 emissions are the direct GHG emissions through the company’s own operations. Since Dunder Mifflin is only a paper supply company and is not involved in any kind of manufacturing, it may not have significant scope 1 emissions, except perhaps the company-owned delivery truck fleet and the packaging it uses for its products. A more intuitive example could be a cement industry that releases carbon dioxide directly as a by-product into the atmosphere.
• Scope 2 emissions are the indirect emissions coming from the company’s energy consumption such as electricity, heat, etc. In the present case, it includes the CO2 emissions from the electricity and heat consumption of Dunder Mifflin offices and warehouses.
• Scope 3 emissions include all the other indirect emissions in the company’s value chain. This mainly includes the CO2 emissions from the car drives and business travel of Dunder Mifflin employees and the carbon footprint of the paper sold.

Step 2 is to set up a target. After a company has assessed its existing carbon footprint and forecasted it for the future too, the company takes a call on the amount of carbon reduction it wishes to achieve and the corresponding timeline for the same. Forecasting the carbon footprint is a complex process given the sheer number of drivers and parameters that can affect the company’s operations in the future. The carbon footprint is often linked to the financial projections of the company. The most prevalent technique for carbon forecasting is by using the artificial intelligence of neural networks and grey forecasting models.

Step 3 is to act. Now that the company has successfully broken down its total emissions, it should start acting on reducing the emissions through every sub-unit identified. In the case of Dunder Mifflin, the company can start by replacing its existing truck fleet with one that has electric trucks or hydrogen trucks and switching to recyclable/reusable packaging for its products. This can help it cut down its Scope 1 emissions. For Scope 2 emissions, the company can switch to renewable energy-based DISCOMS that supply clean electricity and heat. The company can also consider switching to rooftop solar for meeting its own electricity needs and going carbon neutral. To cut down on the Scope 3 emissions, the company can minimize its business travels or switch to less polluting fuel-based travel. The company can also switch to paper manufacturers that have already eliminated their own Scope 1 emissions and are manufacturing paper in a carbon-neutral manner.

Although the process of reducing emissions sounds simple, given the high capital cost and the absence of strong pressure from the competitors, companies often make use of a loophole through the purchase of carbon credits. A carbon credit is a permit that allows the company that holds it to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.If some of the emissions by a company are inevitable, the company can still claim to be carbon neutral by paying another organization to remove the remaining amount of CO2 from the atmosphere, a technique called carbon offsetting.

Now the carbon credit market and carbon offsetting as a technique are highly debatable. There are concerns regarding the effectiveness of carbon offsets and whether or not they impact the global south disproportionately, by giving the richer countries a free hand to pollute. Given the vast scope of the topic, I’ll need another article to do full justice to it. So please watch out for the 2nd part of When Dunder Mifflin Went Carbon Neutral!

If you've reached this far, I truly appreciate your time. Through this blog, I plan on writing about sustainability, social impact, climate change, and how actors, ranging from governments to markets to individuals, are changing their ways to make the world a better place. Since I'm still learning, I'd love to receive feedback on my work. Check out my bio for my instagram and linkedin. Stay safe!