In our last installment of Running the Talk, we began the journey towards carbon neutrality, and quite the journey it has been. Finally, a few weeks ago, we pulled into the garage, parked the car, got out and came inside. The trip is over, our itchy eyes have been opened, and we have seen the carbon neutral world. Sorta’.

egg has been a green power buyer since 2005, but story after story weighed down on us like a high-pressure front until one news item led to the last carbon that broke the compound’s back, and we felt the burning urge to take a stand. After all, not too many companies out there have undertaken such an endeavor, much less ad agencies—none that we are aware of—so if not us, who? We declare, the carbon neutralization of the branding and advertising worlds starts here!

In spite of the warming debate among the few holdouts, we felt the need to step up, not only to the green power purchasing plane, but beyond. Nothing less than a strategic carbon reduction plan, with the ultimate goal of full-bore carbon neutrality, would do.

Our carbon inventory included all of the energy emitted from our staff and contractors employed to make the powerful stuff we create, but not clients, supply chain, or media. It’s a start, right? In the process, though, we decided our next steps should include quantifying the carbon inventory for the execution of an average website, online ad plan, event, print ad and TV spot, so that we can add these carbon neutral marketing tools to our powered up list of socially responsible solutions. Next up: The Carbon Neutral Super Bowl spot with offsets starting at $100,000.

Overall, our steam heat and bus use were the biggest carbon hogs, with airline travel and paper usage a close second. Recommendations for energy efficiencies include “the little things” like (#3) installing SNAP CO2 savers to reduce computer energy usage by up to 80% in sleep mode, and (#11) opting for two day UPS shipping instead of overnight, (# 12) adjusting paper margins to reduce the # of pages printed, but we are most charged with (#19) the idea of organizing other tenants to create critical mass to encourage our landlord to install waterless urinals in the men’s bathrooms, low-flow faucets, and hopefully bike racks, and lockers. Communal compost bins would be icing on the carbon cake. Now if we can just find the time to gather all of those tenant signatures.