Frequently Asked Questions

When you see the label, you know that a brand has met a high standard for climate action, and is actively funding projects that will eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.

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Let’s use our favorite fictional example, a company called InTents. The label on InTents products means that the company has counted up the carbon emissions it’s responsible for, allocated a budget ($15 per tonne in 2025) for climate projects, and documented key details of its climate initiative.

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If you’re shopping for a tent, and see our label on the InTents website, you can check out InTents’ profile page and see that InTents certified by measuring 67,145 tonnes of 2024 emissions. You can also see details of InTents' climate initiatives.

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You’ll find The Climate Label on product packaging, websites, and social media.

The Change Climate Project aims to get thousands of companies to launch and grow high impact climate initiatives, leading to millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas reductions around the world.

In the course of doing this, we aim to create a trusted label that is a useful tool for consumers to incorporate their values into their everyday purchase decisions.

TCCP is an independent nonprofit, led by its own team and overseen by its Board of Directors. Our work is funded through the generous support of our donors, as well as through program fees that we charge to users of our tools, and to companies that use our label.

We have a transparent process and follow industry best practices to ensure good governance practices. Our organization is overseen by a board of directors, advisors, and a technical advisory committee (meet our team and advisors here) and maintained through a regular stakeholder process. Our certification standards are transparently posted, and are reviewed and updated annually through our stakeholder feedback process to make sure they are consistent with the latest best practices in corporate responsibility and the current state of the voluntary carbon market.

For starters, we don't sell carbon offsets or consulting services. Most other label providers do, and their certification requirements fit with their incentives to sell more of what they sell. That's not what you'd expect as someone looking for an independent label. You want it to be about the climate outcomes.

So we are committed to creating and maintaining a clear, trusted certification and climate label.

This carries across to how we approach our work with companies. Think of us as providing a friendly but firm hand to companies: we tell them what they need to do in order to have a credible climate initiative. We want them to feel empowered, but we want them to understand that there is a bar they must clear.

Otherwise, we shun overhead costs, we're scrappy and tech-savvy, we're passionate, and we believe that the less we take, the more is left over for actually reducing climate pollution across companies' value chains.

Greenhouse gas emissions are the single most globally damaging form of pollution, and yet, they are mostly unregulated. Every sustainability goal is worthy, but most are irrelevant in a world made uninhabitable by carbon pollution.

Furthermore, efforts to reduce carbon emissions are often aligned with other environmental priorities. For example, recycled metals are typically less carbon intensive, and require less mining, which often means less destruction of wildlife habitat.

It's everybody's thing. Governments around the world should be regulating emissions, but unfortunately aren't, and we don't have time to spare. Climate change requires immediate action, which is why companies need to take responsibility for their own emissions. We hope this corporate movement will tell policymakers that there is mass public support for carbon regulation, spurring the government to take action.

We're committed to making The Climate Label a household name and focusing on both our own marketing strategy and helping our brands communicate their certification to their customers. Follow us on X, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. We’re constantly having conversations with the media, and have a presence at top industry events and conferences.

We work hand-in-hand with our brands to help you promote your commitment and certification. And, our brands love to collaborate, so you’ll have the chance to reach new customers through giveaways and network-wide sales.

Sure do - share this website and drop us a line and we'll set you up with what you need to outline the business case!

It's true - we do a lot of things that typical for-profit startups do. We make software, we provide advice to companies, we do marketing, and we even plan and run our organization a lot like a 'regular' startup.

But we're not a regular startup - we're a nonprofit startup. Specifically, a tech nonprofit startup (yes, that's a thing). And because of this, we are free and able to make certain choices in how we approach our work that wouldn't be possible with a for-profit structure. For example:

-- Our programs and pricing are optimized for access and reach, not profitability. A good chunk of our work involves bringing companies to the climate table for the first time, even if they don't think they have the resources or knowledge to become climate leaders. Sure, we could charge more for things, and if we had investors, they'd ask us to. But we don't, so we're able to focus more on impact.

-- We avoid conflicts of interest that for-profit companies often have. We don't want commercial interests to get in the way of our mission. We want you to trust us.

-- We work heavily with volunteers, which is not possible as a for-profit. We end up training hundreds of people in climate work, carbon accounting, and other skills. It's a bona fide win-win, and it's become an integral part of how we approach our work in an open, community-driven way.

Finally - we think a lot of the knowledge we peddle is not all that unique - and should be open source. The future of the global climate depends on how fast people figure out how to eliminate carbon emissions in a gazillion different places. It's imperative that we empower as many people with tools and know-how.

So: our programs optimize for access and scale; our independence builds trust; our programs build knowledge, skills, and capacity for action.

Reach out to us via our Contact Us page. We look forward to talking.

We certify companies at the brand level, which includes all emissions from making and delivering products and services. This is the only way to eliminate enough carbon and halt climate change. Companies consistently find that it costs less than a percent of revenues to meet the requirements of our certification.

But wait...there’s more. Measuring your entire brand-level footprint is also clearer to consumers trying to understand the label. To the guy at the supermarket, the spaghetti and the rigatoni more or less the same - why should one be certified and the other not? To keep everything clear and to enable brands to take more ambitious action, we only certify at the brand level.

There's no easy answer to this question, since the price of a carbon credit depends on the project, as well as market supply and demand. People are often surprised to learn that some carbon credits can be purchased for as little as $7 USD per metric ton. However, every carbon credit project is different, and quality varies widely. For that reason, it is important to look closely at the underlying project before you buy a carbon credit.

We advise companies to budget 0.5% of revenues to account for cradle-to-customer carbon emissions reductions and contributions toward global net-zero. Considering the magnitude of the climate challenge and the confusion many people feel about what to do about it, it's refreshing to know that something meaningful can be done about it for so little.

Even if you don't make a physical product, your operations generate greenhouse gas emissions, directly and indirectly. Everything from the electricity used to light your office and run your computer to employee work travel counts in calculating your carbon inventory.

It’s hard to create a carbon footprint for an organization that doesn’t yet exist, or hasn’t completed a full year of operations. We recommend folks in those situations get in touch once they have a year under their belt.

On the other end of the spectrum, we’ll take even the largest companies. In fact, that’s the path to our greatest scale and impact.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions represent the entirety of a carbon footprint from a company’s activities.  

• Scope 1 signifies direct emissions that come from on-site facilities. This can include the fuel you burn in company vehicles, the natural gas you use to heat your office, or any direct emissions from owned manufacturing plants.
• Scope 2 represents indirect emissions. This is mostly your purchased electricity.
• Scope 3 represents indirect emissions from your supply chain and in most cases makes up the majority of a company’s footprint. Scope 3 represents tCO2 emitted across the entire corporate value chain – that means emissions released from extracting raw materials used for finished products, corporate business travel, employee commuting, shipping and transporting, and more.

To learn more about Scopes 1, 2 and 3, visit World Resource Institute's GHG Protocol homepage.

It depends on your company, but for many companies, Scope 3 emissions are the biggest chunk. These are emissions from your value chain: all of the activities you engage in as you create and bring your product to market. Quite often, all of the emissions embedded in the raw materials or services you purchase, the airline miles you fly, the commutes of your employees -- these add up to much more than your electric bill (Scope 2).

There will always be uncertainty in estimating the entirety of a company’s footprint, if Scope 3 is included. Uncertainties stem from gaps in data, oversimplifications of reality to translate dollar values into units of tCO2e, and much more. But don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, especially if a carbon inventory is the foundation of your climate strategy, as it should be. Virtually all carbon inventories are well-informed, data-driven estimates, and we provide tools and resources to make this process more accessible to you. Our tech platform, the BEE, is a great way to get started, and works for most businesses that have fewer than 50 operating locations (offices, retail locations, factories, etc.) It combines the power of estimation with the capability to refine with physical / activity data.

Essential. We can’t stop the planet from warming more than 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels unless we all take a good hard look in the mirror and come up with a plan to reduce our own emissions over time. Accordingly, we require that reduction plans are created and implemented on an annual basis and encourage brands to adopt reduction targets that are consistent with the latest climate science, for example by developing a target through the Science-based Targets Initiative.

First, give yourself a big pat on the back for this exciting accomplishment! Next, display The Climate Label on your products, website, and marketing materials to share your certification with the world. Continue to work on reducing your emissions and encourage more companies to follow your lead.

The total cost of certification consists mainly of the funding you're required to allocate toward your climate transition projects. The amount of money is equal to the minimum required carbon price times the size of your carbon inventory.
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Our program fees help pay for the work we’re doing to build the movement behind our label -- and our work to certify companies. The smaller your footprint, the less you pay us. In a perfect world, everyone’s emissions would be zero and our work would be done!

Costs for value chain projects: Maybe! Please check with your 1% for the Planet contact to confirm the eligibility of your value chain expenditures.

Certification costs paid to TCCP: Yes! We are a nonprofit that is recognized by 1% for the Planet.

Costs for carbon credits: Yes! We can send you a list of carbon credit providers that are in the 1% for the Planet network.

That's great that you already have a plan — nice work! Now, we just need to make sure it fits our certification requirements. Drop us a line and we'll give you some quick feedback and identify any gaps. You could already be close!