Planet Positive©

What planet positive^© does

An activity or company is planet positive^©, if it reduces humanity’s overshoot. Expanding this activity or company would reduce humanity’s overshoot even further.

In contrast, just providing more sustainably harvested timber, more organic carrots, or more electric vehicles is not planet positive^©. These activities only are if they replace more Footprint intensive products, with a net effect of a reduction in global overshoot.

Activities or products can be made planet positive^©  by designing them better. Or if design options are not effective enough, or not yet implementable, they can be made planet positive^© by pairing it with certified planet positive^© compensation. This is the essence of Global Footprint Network’s planet positive^©  certificates. It offers to not merely neutralize impact. Rather, such certificates ensure that the Ecological Footprint of a product or service is mirrored from negative to positive through compensations. Therefore, the activity/product with the certificate combined result in an actual reduction of humanity’s ecological overshoot. With the certificate, a activity or product’s negative impact turns into a positive ecological contribution.

Given massive global ecological overshoot, neutralizing impact is no longer sufficient. Overshoot reduction is required to enable humanity to thrive within the means of planet Earth. Planet positive products and activities truly MoveTheDate: they push the date of Earth Overshoot Day further out.

How planet positive^© certificates work

Every product or activity requires energy and resources. This is true even for an email or a song playing on a solar-powered smart phone. To make a product or activity planet positive, its Ecological Footprint is compensated at least twofold.

Anthropogenic carbon emissions are a big part of humanity’s Footprint. For carbon Footprints, the full amount is compensated through reliable mitigation (reduction of emissions), and an additional equal amount is compensated through ecological restoration (sequestration of emissions, which still requires an Ecological Footprint, but it also restores biocapacity).

Quality and accountability

Planet positive^© adheres to the highest accounting and compensation standards, including those for carbon credits, to make sure the certification delivers on its promise. Compensations used for planet positive must:

• avoid double counting (for instance, carbon reductions must not be counted elsewhere);
• be socially beneficial (benefits have to flow back to communities that manage the ecosystems);
• be guaranteed over long time frames (not just temporary); and
• be traceable as every provided planet positive seal is registered on this planet positive website.

For details, consult the planet positive overview document.

A full website will be dedicated to the effort (www.planetpositive.eco).

Certified planet-positive^© activities

Planet-positive^© activities will be documented in publicly accessible tables as outlined below.

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