Measure First: Stop Spending on the Wrong Carbon Fixes Artwork

Climate Confident - Practical Climate Solutions That Cut Emissions

Climate Confident is for business leaders, climate professionals and policymakers who need to understand what is actually cutting emissions—and what it takes to make those solutions work at scale.

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Climate Confident - Practical Climate Solutions That Cut Emissions

Measure First: Stop Spending on the Wrong Carbon Fixes

July 29, 2026 • Tom Raftery • Season 1 • Episode 287

0:00 | 55:05

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Carbon accounting can send companies straight at the wrong problem. A visible sustainability initiative may feel productive while the real emissions hotspot sits in raw materials, product design or the supply chain.

My guest is John Beath, CEO and Chief Technical Director of John Beath Environmental, whose work in lifecycle assessment helps companies test assumptions before they commit money, engineering effort or supplier changes. The stakes are practical: get the system boundary wrong, and a product carbon footprint can misdirect investment rather than improve it.

We examine why Scope 3 emissions so often dwarf what happens inside the factory, why bio-based or recycled materials are not automatically the lower-carbon choice, and what leaders miss when durability, reverse logistics or avoided emissions are left out. We also unpack the solar-panel case where the presumed hotspot was silicon—but the decisive intervention was elsewhere.

Listen now to understand how better lifecycle assessment can expose the carbon decisions that matter most—and stop your organisation spending heavily on fixes that barely move the needle.

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