Valco's Greenwash campaign
Buy a headset, plant a tree and save the world!
Valco wants to look good and sell a lot of headphones. Since others are doing this nowadays, we decided to launch our own environmental campaign too. Of course it's greenwashing when a company does something like this. What's the point in going around in circles. Let's be honest. But it's a good thing because it's not only good for the environment, but it also makes us money.
As part of this campaign, we're setting a target of planting one tree sapling for every pair of headphones sold - including those already sold. We don't plant them as and when the headphones are sold, but always as a one-off (as planting is done).
Unlike other corporate greenwashing campaigns, we go to the backyard swamp ourselves and plant (almost) all the promised seedlings with our own little hands. We can't afford to hire a youth organisation to plant, so we plant ourselves and force our own children and family members to join us.
Okay, in addition to the ones we planted ourselves, we have to buy seedlings from elsewhere, we don't have the capacity to do everything. This is because sales have exceeded expectations.
Valco planting started in spring 2021 and in the first summer alone and together with others we have already planted well over ten thousand saplings, the equivalent of several hectares of forest. We planted about half of this ourselves with our own small hands.
If all goes well, we will buy more land to plant and let it grow. There the squirrels can run and the rabbits can mate in peace.
10,000 trees = a lot of carbon dioxide sequestered.
According to a study (Malmodin & Lundén, 2018), 320 million hearing aids are sold worldwide every year. Their combined "carbon footprint" is 3.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tce). Based on this, the carbon footprint of one pair of headphones is 10 kilograms. Correct me if I got it wrong, math is not our strong suit. You can see it in the margins.
(3.2 M tons of CO2 / 320 M headsets = 0.01 tons of CO2 / headset)
According to another commercial tree planting campaign, planting 43 tree stumps is equivalent to 10 000 kg of CO2. This could therefore lead to the conclusion that planting one tree is equivalent to a reduction of 233 kilograms of emissions. This is where the numbers get confusing, but in other words, every pair of headphones you buy from us saves the world quite a few pairs of headphones.
So by buying Valco's noise-cancelling headphones, you offset more than you spend.
In fact, you offset everything you can buy from us. And even if our numbers are off, you're still offsetting something. By buying enough pairs of headphones for your company, you can offset the CEO's trip to Pattaya. If you want, you can also compensate for adultery and a small penis.
Seriously, protecting the environment is not a ducky trade. So don't think that now that I've compensated, I can do whatever I want. In any case, these are probably the only headphones in Finland that have been compensated in some way for the emissions they produce.
Offsetting and employing the entrepreneur
No point lying that we're doing this just for goodness sake. The aim of this greenwashing campaign is mainly to sell new headphones, but of course it is also about saving the world.
The more headsets we sell, the closer we get to the ultimate goal of building a Death Star in orbit.
The bonus here is that we promise to shoot the planting footage for social media. So you can sit on your sofa at home, drinking lemonade and listening to your favourite music through your great headphones with a clear conscience, and laugh while the entrepreneur is in the woods being eaten by deer flies.
How can I take part?- Buy the headphones
Cited research on the carbon footprint of headphones. The Energy and Carbon Footprint of the Global ICT and E&M Sectors 2010-2015. Sustainability, 10(9), 3027. doi: 10.3390/su10093027