I Believe that Climate Change is Real
By Vicki Bohlsen, President
I don’t say this with any political leaning or influence: I truly believe climate change is one of the biggest, most urgent problems we are facing. In fact, I agree with scientists who say we are facing a “climate emergency.” Climate change is affecting the planet in ways that could alter all life on Earth.
Our health, food systems, economies and communities all impact this crisis and, at the same time, are all at enormous risk. So, what can we do? We can reduce, reuse and recycle – and I will personally add regard – as much as humanly possible, particularly when you understand that climate change poses the greatest threat to people who are already vulnerable to socio-economic challenges, such as poor communities, communities of color, women and youth.
Likely, if you are reading this, you work with at least one of these target audiences in your daily work. As a company that works with clients that use business as a force for good, Bohlsen Group is proud to partner with two organizations that are attempting to change our sustainability behaviors and impact our own communities: Circular Indiana and Carbon Neutral Indiana.
I encourage you to go to Circular Indiana’s website and check out their amazing resources. I know I was not always doing recycling right and was unknowingly causing problems! I was sometimes “wishcycling” – a term I love, that describes when I was throwing the cardboard pizza box or a clean, but wet item into in my bin.
In fact, working closely with and taking advantage of Circular Indiana’s resources has changed my personal and professional approach on how to recycle as much and correctly as possible. They even have a resource for checking to see if you can and where to recycle anything you are getting rid of. Recent searches for me included sticks, wood, paint, batteries and furniture… and wine corks (sorry, not sorry!)
I decided to upcycle all my wine corks and made trivets and coasters for everyone in my family for Christmas. These kinds of conscious recycling decisions are what we all need to be doing because the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that increasing our national recycling rate from 30% to 35% alone could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 10 million metric tons of carbon equivalent.
Carbon Neutral Indiana (CNI) is the company you turn to if you want to take it a step further and offset carbon emissions. Consider this: Every item that you don’t recycle or reuse becomes carbon trash.
CNI offers a free assessment that takes about fifteen minutes for you to find out your carbon footprint. I learned so much when I took this assessment and, ultimately, was very surprised how inexpensive it was to offset my footprint by investing in projects which soak up the same amount I emit. My household and Bohlsen Group are now carbon neutral.
President Biden has said this will be a decisive decade for tackling climate change, pledging to cut carbon emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by the year 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050. Certainly, there are very difficult challenges ahead to reach these goals, but can’t we each chip in by cleaning up our side of the street?
You can hear more on my “Taking Care in Business” podcast.