Although deeply rooted in our history, sustainability is a relatively new consideration in the business world. The challenge with integrating this ancient practice lies with our modern thinking that we must leave the world unharmed, unchanged, or - even more ambitiously - better than we found it. Society's perception of sustainability has been influenced by the dominant narrative that aligning with nature is unnatural, creating a disconnect between our actions and the principles that guided our ancestors. Sustainability was our ancestor's journey, and it can - and should - be ours as well.
As we navigate a world where we have outsized power over our environment, and where human decisions are now driven largely by capital rather than philosophy or religion, sustainability has been reshaped to fit within corporate policies. However, this transformation has also led to a limited perspective, with a heavy emphasis on carbon as the sole lens through which we perceive climate change - or any other environmental impacts - hindering our ability to take comprehensive action.
When the term "climate change" came into widespread use, the scientific community - and, to a lesser degree, the world - was already concerned about global warming, and the alarm was raised, citing greenhouse emissions as the main culprit. Regardless of other aspects that should have been considered, efforts to reduce the amount of greenhouse emissions became such a priority that carbon offsetting became synonymous with climate action. How companies and governments were handling carbon became a political token, and, in the process, we largely stopped innovating and gave up addressing climate change in a holistic manner, at least with the urgency that is and has always been needed. What occurred was perhaps best described by Jan Konietzko, the person who coined the term "carbon tunnel vision" - a phenomenon that perfectly and succinctly describes our limited view of addressing climate change and sustainable development, where only carbon emissions matter and the remaining factors are neglected or deemed unimportant.
While reducing carbon emissions - or in some way reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - is the central pillar of combating climate change, the exclusive focus on carbon as the only metric for addressing climate change has inadvertently hindered innovation and hindered our ability to address the broader spectrum of sustainability challenges. The urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions became so paramount that it reduced the urgency to act in other ways, such as protecting our oceans and forests. In fact, recent reporting has claimed that carbon offsetting projects that do not live up to the amount of carbon they purport to remove are "worthless" - in other words, if these projects do not remove as much carbon as they say then they are not worth anything, regardless of all the species they protect, all the habitats they preserve, and all the trees they keep alive. With that being said, it is still important to ensure carbon offset projects do indeed store and remove as much carbon as they claim if we are to utilize them to adequately remove carbon from the atmosphere. The issue is with the "carbon tunnel vision," where these projects are deemed "worthless" rather than "less valuable from a carbon offset perspective but still incredibly valuable from a conservation and sustainable development perspective." Climate change must be addressed more effectively to ensure a comprehensive and impactful approach to sustainability.
At IMARCS, we embrace the challenge of sustainability from a comprehensive and holistic perspective. We recognize the urgency of taking action now and the importance of removing carbon and restoring our ecosystems. The complexities of our modern world require a collaborative effort from both newer and older generations. That's why we are actively rethinking, restoring, and replenishing our reefs.
Through our mariculture project approach, we not only focus on CO2 removal but also prioritize food security and the restoration of biodiversity, especially for threatened species. Our cultivation of multiple species of giant clams, scientifically known as tridacnae, allows us to capture significant amounts of atmospheric carbon and sequester it in their calcium carbonate shells. This natural process has occurred throughout Earth's history, and we aim to harness its potential for accelerated carbon capture. Furthermore, our projects are supported and by multidisciplinary scientific research and deliver measurable impacts in a variety of important areas, such as biodiversity conservation, food security, water crisis mitigation, and ecotoxicity reduction.
Naturally, this has happened before on Earth: paleontological and archeological evidence has been found that shows that during periods of time of high CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere, clams and other calcium carbonate-utilizing organisms increased in numbers. The potential for carbon capture through storage in these organisms is proving to be an attractive option to produce change faster than before - in a measurable, holistic way.
Join us as we look beyond carbon tunnel vision to rethink how sustainability should be adequately addressed. Together we can restore and replenish our reefs.