Iron House Fitness Commits to Carbon Offsetting

We all know the reality of climate change. At Iron House, we believe that everyone has a part to play in alleviating the impacts of climate change on our planet. As athletes, we are constantly reaching for new and more challenging goals, treating our bodies with care and doing what it takes to optimize our performance. At Iron House, we believe that sustainably made products reflect the care we show ourselves. That is why we are constantly striving to increase the sustainability of our products by sourcing sustainable materials and creating design and manufacturing processes that minimize waste, or those that create waste that can be reused or repurposed. 

While not without criticism, another great way for a business like Iron House to play their part in addressing the increased emissions worldwide is carbon offsetting. 

What is carbon offsetting?

In their blog, Shopify describes it best: 

Imagine making a mess, let’s say spilling a can of paint. But you don’t know how to clean up paint, or you just don’t want to. So instead of cleaning it yourself, you pay someone to clean up a different can of spilled paint somewhere else, or to prevent another paint can from being spilled. The paint you spilled is still there. But the number of total paint cans spilled in the world is the same as before you spilled yours. This is what carbon offsets are like for the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions we release into the atmosphere.

The good news is that this is a crude analogy. In the paint can scenario, you’d still be side-stepping spilled paint and would never see the benefit of your remote cleaning. Pulling carbon from the atmosphere, however, is different, because it’s beneficial to the entire planet, regardless of where in the world it happens.

People, businesses, and governments can calculate how much carbon they’ve emitted from things like daily life and business operations and then pay to capture or prevent emissions for that amount of CO2. Offsets are sold per metric ton of CO2, and the price range is massive, from a few dollars per metric ton to hundreds of dollars. It all depends on the size of the offset project, the technology used, and the country where it’s implemented.

This is why Iron House Fitness has signed up to Shopify's Offset program. Offset is a Shopify app "allowing merchants to opt-in to offset the shipments of all of their deliveries." 

Estimates suggest that approximately one kilogram of carbon is emitted into the atmosphere for every package shipped when factoring in average travel distance, travel methods, and package weight, among others. 

Fitness equipment isn't light which means the emissions released by the shipment of our products are often higher than the average, making it even more important for us to play our part.

The Offset program enables Iron House Fitness to fund initiatives such as the Jarí Para Forest Conservation Project in the Amazon Rainforest:

"Located in the tropical Amazon rainforest of Brazil, this project covers almost 500,000 hectares of land. A massive conservation effort, the project is protecting a landmass almost the size of the State of Delaware! An area rich with biodiversity, diverse plant species of ecological and social importance, the project additionally serves a crucial role as an ecological corridor that connects several conservation areas in the surrounding region."

In our mission to make our operations carbon negative, the Offset program allows Iron House to offset the carbon emissions created by shipping our products to you. In doing so, Iron House works with you, our customers, to help save the world.