Challenge: Learning by doing

None of us were experts in climate-neutral production at this project’s beginning. We knew what global warming was and what greenhouse gases are. We knew their sources. But none of us knew how to account for any of this. The Zero Fund hosted a climate academy to help grantees understand what climate accounting practically entails. It was interesting to wrap our minds around the actualities of carbon counting and carbon trading.

Our first lesson, which helped us grasp the process, was that we only account for the project’s expenses. We did not account for the team’s individual twenty-four hours of existence, not even on research trips. In one day, each of us might have to account for a train ride to and a subway ride within Berlin, the relative climate costs of a generic vegetarian lunch, and the hotel room’s climate footprint if we stayed overnight. But if we spent no project money directly, meaning handing in a bill for accountancy, we would have no project-relevant climate costs—even if we traveled, ate, and slept.

We learned climate accounting in action. But equally important to our process was our climate officer’s ongoing participation in the Zero Academy. Without his and the academy’s support, we wouldn’t have had the time to organize our ambitious binational research project on nuclear questions—none of us being experts in that field. Elie helped us figure out the basics, e.g., how to calculate Deutsche Bahn’s climate footprint and determine our share of it based on the distance traveled.

When we began, it seemed like we might have to reinvent the wheel with every new expense. But we learned that there were services already available for climate-neutral production. Look for green-certified hotels, for example—the certification is there for a reason.

We learned by doing, by learning from skilled professionals, and by realizing that the green transition has already begun, and that services exist to meet our needs.