zkipster is certified with The Climate Label

This week, thousands of leaders, innovators and changemakers have been gathering for the world’s largest annual climate event: Climate Week in New York City. 

Nearly 900 roundtables, panels, tours, hackathons and networking events are taking place across the city, alongside tree planting, birdwatching and sound bath sessions. Climate Week aims to address the biggest climate challenges, shape decision making and inspire action, and we’re happy to announce that zkipster has been certified with The Climate Label to coincide with this pivotal event. 

Our partners at The Change Climate Project, an independent nonprofit organization aiming to accelerate global decarbonization, have guided us on our sustainability journey since 2021. Although this is our fifth consecutive year certifying with them, it’s the first time we have earned their new Climate Label.

About The Climate Label

The Climate Label is a trusted mark of corporate climate leadership that’s available to consumer products and services companies and requires them to consistently fund climate solutions. Earning the label demonstrates zkipster’s ongoing efforts to reduce our environmental impact. The rigorous certification process has three stages: Measure, Reduce and Fund.

Measure

Using operational data, we estimated our cradle-to-customer emissions, which totalled 329 tCO₂e in 2024. This assessment produced our Climate Transition Budget, which we invested in qualifying projects to accelerate the transition to net zero, both within our operations and beyond.

Reduce

Each year we set out Reduction Action Plans to reduce emissions within our supply chain, and this year we pledged to cut back on business travel. As a remote-first company with colleagues in six hubs across four continents, having senior management travel to the regions and hosting business-critical in-person meetings for smaller groups will reduce total business travel and Scope 3 emissions while ensuring we stay connected as a global team.

Fund

Our Climate Transition Budget is used to fund Value Chain Abatement (VCA) projects that actively reduce emissions within our own operations and supply chain, and Beyond Value Chain (BVC) projects that do the same outside our operations.

For our VCA project, we invested in reusable water bottles for the zkipster team. This purchase reduces emissions by eliminating the repeated production and disposal of single-use PET plastic bottles. The durable, insulated stainless steel bottles we purchased have a higher initial carbon footprint due to material extraction and manufacturing, but their long service life means they quickly offset these impacts.

We invested our Beyond Value Chain budget in an Ocean+Positive solution created by Seatrees specifically for Climate Label partners. Seatrees is a nonprofit organization that uses a science-based approach to restore and protect marine environments around the world, with the goal of reversing climate change, enhancing biodiversity and supporting local communities.

90% of all carbon in the global carbon cycle is stored in the ocean, including in mangrove forests, which sequester 5-10 times more CO₂ from the atmosphere per hectare than tropical rainforests. Every Ocean+Positive Seatrees bundle plants three mangrove trees in Marereni, Kenya, and sequesters CO₂ through VCS/CCBA certified carbon credits sourced from the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project in Cambodia.

The Marereni project empowers local villagers to protect critical coastal ecosystems by planting over 790,000 mangrove trees. More than 200 jobs have been created, at least 40% of which are held by women, access to healthcare and food has improved, and the restored mangrove forest will help to protect against storm surges and sea level rise. Every tree has the potential to sequester approximately 300kg of carbon dioxide over its 25 year lifespan.

The Southern Cardamom "Ridge to Reef" REDD+ Project contains 2,000+ hectares of pristine mangrove forest and also helps to protect and enhance the surrounding 50,000+ hectares of mangroves, a vital blue carbon environment that is home to several critically endangered species. The project has provided sustainable livelihoods for 200+ people and delivered health and education benefits for thousands more people in the community. 

The Change Climate Project only permits pre-approved credits like these that meet its high standards, ensuring quality and integrity. Carefully vetted carbon credits have a role to play in accelerating the net-zero transition, and are part of the global solution to the dual crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss. 

By investing in these projects, we can support coastal ecosystems, biodiversity and some of the people most impacted by climate change while being financially accountable for our emissions. Five years in, zkipster’s climate initiative continues to evolve. We’re consistently learning, adapting and working to reduce our impact and inspire change across the events industry.

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If you’d like to dive deeper:

• Read about sustainable event management, from venue sourcing to measurement
• Learn more about zkipster’s sustainability journey
• 2021: zkipster is Climate Neutral Certified
• 2023: Three years as a Climate Neutral Certified brand
• 2024: Celebrating Earth Day and our fourth year of carbon neutrality