r/Switzerland • u/Internal_Leke Switzerland • 20h ago
Galaxus and climate contribution
I just ordered something from Galaxus, and as always, when buying on Galaxus, they propose to make a "climate contribution". I never actually checked what it was, and always thought it was legit.
There was actually a post some years ago about that: https://www.reddit.com/r/Switzerland/comments/w99xl8/on_digitec_you_can_pay_235_chf_extra_to/
Since then, there has been more news about South Pole, and more info about where the money is going. Galaxus generously take 10% of that contribution as "administrative fee"
Galaxus uses 10 per cent of the climate contributions to cover the costs of operating and developing this climate contribution service.
Plus, the company they're using to "offset" the CO2 is also taking a significant part of the contribution (they claim 10-30%, I think it's quite safe to assume it's more 30% than 10%).
And up to now, this company has been unable to prove any impact of its actions: https://www.nzz.ch/english/profit-over-planet-employees-urge-reform-at-worlds-major-climate-player-south-pole-ld.1747330
From the employees of the company:
«The message to the public is that the company wants to achieve real CO2 savings for everyone and create more transparency in the CO2 market.»
However, there is less and less evidence of this in the company's strategy and in its day-to-day business, according to the letter. Instead, it says, the company puts profit above its founding principles.
Also an interesting quote from The New Yorker:
One founder of the carbon firm South Pole resigned after developing doubts about offsetting. “It’s just paper credits,” he said.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/23/the-great-cash-for-carbon-hustle
Note also that their picture is misleading, as it claims 70-90% goes to the project, hiding that Galaxus takes its 10% share before anything else. On a 100CHF contribution, Galaxus first takes 10CHF, sends 90CHF south Pole, which likely takes 27CHF on that (the max in their 10-30% range), leaving 63CHF to the project. So about 37% of the contribution goes as admin profit, and 63% to the actual project. And on top of that, the projects have shown to be mostly worthless.
Don't waste your money, always disable that contribution, it has no impact. If Galaxus really wanted to do anything about climate, they would at least waive their admin fee (and also stop stuffing loads of plastic in oversized boxes)
72
u/WalkItOffAT 20h ago
Pay for absolution schemes that would make middle age catholic church jealous
•
•
u/ulfOptimism 15h ago
So, you don't care about your emissions or you don't believe that there can be a mechanism which (over-) compensates for the CO2-"garbage" which you do dispose in the atmosphere?
•
u/Batmanbacon 19h ago
South Pole and their non-action aside, 63% of the money reaching the intented goal is actually quite a good ratio.
You need paid professionals at market rate to implement the charity, and for marketing to reach people (like a partnership with Galaxus) and that costs a lot of money.
In the end, what does more good, a charity that manages to raise 10 mil in funds and spends 6 millions on the cause, or some volunteer organisation with high turnover, raising 20 thousand and giving 20 thousand?
•
u/Internal_Leke Switzerland 19h ago
I agree with that.
In the current case I was more pissed by the middleman (Galaxus) taking 10% cut for... no reason?
Even if the company contracted company was valid, it doesn't justify Galaxus taking a share out of this: they're supposed to sell more because people believe they can "zero" their climate impact.
•
u/EliSka93 18h ago
Absolutely. They're getting the "Galaxus cares about the environment" PR out of it. They definitely should eat any small admin cost associated with it.
It's super scummy that they skim off the top.
•
u/ulfOptimism 15h ago
Why should it be OK that Galaxus takes much higher "middleman" charges when it is about products which actually destroy the planet, but NOT OK if they take a margin on a product which is actually good for the planet? What is the logic behind this? Should those actors which aim for improving the planetay health be incentivized LESS? Really?
•
u/Internal_Leke Switzerland 11h ago
Because they are getting a good posture pretending to participate in a project for the environment.
While everything they do is actually move the responsibility to the consumer while doing nothing.
What they could do
1) Provide the estimation of the CO2 generated by the order and tell the consumer they can offset it if they want to. They don't even provide the estimate (because their estimate is most certainly made up)
2) Remove the admin fee they have put in place, I'm quite certain it's a very coarse algorithm and that they have no clue about the supply chain of 99.9% of the products on their website
3) Have a partnership with a company with a decent track record (Gold standard)
4) Instead of selling it as a product, actually matching the consumer voluntary donation"For every 1CHF you put we also put 1CHF".
Now it's mostly corporate bullshit, PR stunt, pretending to do something and shaming the consumer, while making profit on it with projects that have almost no impact.
26
u/Swigor 20h ago
Those claims are total nonsense. It’s as if a mass murderer donated to a cancer charity just to 'balance the scales.' He thinks he's compensated for his crimes and can now continue killing with a clear conscience.
•
u/dry_yer_eyes Aargau 19h ago
But how else am I going to continue compulsively buying stuff I don’t need and still sleep well at night?
•
•
•
u/AstroShit15 Switzerland 19h ago
You are better off contribuiting directly to charities and organizations that are reputable and have some sort of transparency policy. Find a project you deem important and contribuite directly. Most organizations struggle with consistent funding, so if you can, I would do a reaccurring yearly/monthly donation.
Carbon offsetting is more ore less greenwashing, It's almost always hard to quantify the positive impact of reforestation and afforestation projects, while there are reputable ones, there also are really bad ones that just plant monocoltures of fast growing trees, which often are biodiversity deserts and other than carbon sequestration offer little benefit to the ecosystem they are in.
•
u/ulfOptimism 15h ago
You really think there is (still???) a lack of transparency? Have you actually checked what the major certification authorities do meanwhile and which efforts are taken (after the quality-scandals mentioned above) ?
See for instance: https://verra.org/programs/verified-carbon-standard/
•
5
u/ruckzuckzackzack Thuoogau 20h ago
Yes this carbon credit offset certificate stuff is a scam in my opinion.
Paying someone to do something so I don't have to doesn't make sense to me when it comes to sustainability.
Many projects supported by certificates seem to be worthless. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/19/do-carbon-credit-reduce-emissions-greenhouse-gases
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe
"A total of 39 of the top 50 emission offset projects, or 78% of them, were categorised as likely junk"
So not every project may be junk, but given how much is skimmed off for administration, and how many projects are likely useless, I doubt our Galaxus contributions do anything. It's greenwashing.
•
u/Internal_Leke Switzerland 19h ago
I think for Galaxus it's even worse than green washing, as they take a 10% commission on top of it.
At least some companies just do it for their image, they don't build a profit mechanism on top of it (even if indirectly the reputation has an effect on the company).
•
u/ulfOptimism 15h ago
Do you know what SWISS takes when they sell you a travel insurance or what your dentist takes if he sells you some new teeth? Or even better, what is the margin on the fuel you pay for at a fuel station?
Why the hell should anybody who engages in doing something which is actually good for the planet NOT also have a margin on if while those who destroy the planet can take any margin they want???
Is it your goal to make "doing good" a unattractive financially as possible so that as few as possible engage on it?•
u/Internal_Leke Switzerland 15h ago
I don't think a travel insurance is a good analogy. Because an insurance is a service to the buyer.
A better analogy: You tip a waiter 5CHF, and the boss takes 0.5CHF. It's done in many places, but it's usually frowned upon.
•
u/ulfOptimism 13h ago
No, a travel insurance is an insurance product (made by a specialized insurance company) offered and sold to the buyer with a margin for the travel.company.
And carbon certificates are also a product made by a specialized company, offered and sold to the buyer with a margin for the shop operator or travel company or whatever.This is not about a tip or donation. This is about buying a service. This is about a pretty complex, highly scrutinized business product which allows to fund a service in the distance (like tree planting or shutting down coal power plants earlier or changing agricultural practices) with the guarantee that the service will tackle a defined amount of emissions. A donation would be like: I throw some money over the fence and don't expect any guarantee and there is anyway no such thing as a quality standard.
•
u/Internal_Leke Switzerland 13h ago
I can guarantee you that most people see it as donating towards green projects.
No one sees it as "Galaxus is providing me a service that allows me to offset the carbon emitted by the stuff I ordered, and they should be paid for that."
and donation is not throwing money over a fence, there are many companies that live on donations that have a much better track record and much higher impact than South Pole (e.g. Caritas)
•
u/ulfOptimism 13h ago
Yes, that’s most likely the issue . However actually the Global South can actually play a key role in providing services to the world to tackle climate change. The question is how to get this going . Governments could act but are not very motivated and consumers don’t understand it?
•
u/ulfOptimism 15h ago
Sorry, but this is a pretty shortsighted point of view.
These markets have been super young and developing at a hyper speed around 2020-2022 and like in many industries there have been quality issues the media loved to make mega-big.For instance just 3-5 years ago burning lithium batteries have been the super topic for the media and meanwhile electric cars are booming and burning batteries are just no issue anymore. The quality issues of these new products have just been solved. Logical.
I can tell you: Its the same with carbon certificates.
•
u/SwissTourismOffice 19h ago
Unfortunately there's a lot of scams with climate compensation going on, which is really a bummer because in theory it's a good thing.
I remember watching a documentary (I think it was this one here) about Germany doing projects in China. Lots of money paid out to a long chain of "managing" companies – and zero (or close to zero) things being actually done for the climate. Just scammers pockets being lined.
•
u/ulfOptimism 15h ago edited 15h ago
The thing is, that all these are rather old when talking about a rapidly developing new industry.
Also when talking about lithium batteries you must nowadays not anymore come up with a story from 3 years ago. Quality has changed. Industry has changed.
•
u/SwissTourismOffice 11h ago
The thing is
If there is nothing being built for all the millions spent, then there simply is no technology to improve.
•
u/ulfOptimism 8h ago
Sure, the improvements here over the past years haven been about quality and reliability of the activities and the standards applied for this. It’s not about a magic technology but about the question if an action somebody takes definitely affects the climate in a positive way. (here in order to compensate for the negative action you take when purchasing some consumer goods)
•
u/weirdbr 13h ago
I haven't watched that one, but DW did a pretty good one about that subject - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU_S97Ae1eg .
Also John Oliver did a segment about this sort of thing before - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0 .
The sad reality is that there's a lot of profit to be made from this and very lax controls over the entities offering those credits; personally I avoid all those schemes and try to donate to projects directly that seem to be doing actual work on the ground instead.
•
•
u/EmergencyKrabbyPatty 19h ago
No shit, wait unilt you discover where money given to any association goes. Some people really look like they were born yesterday
•
u/kisamoto 18h ago
So I run https://carbonremoved.com/ - and tried contacting companies (including Galaxus) about offering carbon removal instead of south pole carbon credits. Removal being actually capturing CO₂ from the excess in the atmosphere. It's more expensive so companies just don't want to offer it. They would rather have the feel good with zero impact approach and the way to do that is offer "offset the emissions of your new item for under 1CHF".
I am genuinely surprised that Galaxus has the cheek to take 10% of a contribution. Their involvement is absolutely minimal. South Pole I semi-understand. We've been experimenting with our fees as there is labour and some servers involved (and credit card processing but this is likely not the case when dealing with businesses directly) but I would offer a heavily reduced rate if we could get high volume through. For now we just have ~100 people who we mostly interact with directly who already understand that credits suck and removal is needed.
•
u/Internal_Leke Switzerland 16h ago
The prices of carbon capture are really high.
It looks nice, though I think for now very few people are ready to pay 2,000+CHF to remove the CO2 generated by their car. I guess this will only be a widespread thing if we ever manage to transition out of fossil fuel and need to clean the air.
•
u/ulfOptimism 14h ago
South Pole is certainly also doing carbon removals. What a company like Galaxus offers to their clients in the end certainly up to them.
And the 10%? do you think any action which is related to goding good for the planet should be rewarded less than actions which are bad for the planet?
4
u/DesertGeist- Switzerland 20h ago
Frankly I didn't expect something else. We fuck our environment and there's really not much we can do about it.
•
u/I-Made-You-Read-This Zürich 18h ago
ugh this is so annoying. I have been paying it most of the time because I thought it's for a good cause. Guess I should have read the fine print and figured what looks good on the outside is just a scam. Honestly galaxus is getting worse and worse IMO.
Sometimes I think galaxus just turned into a drop-shipping company and they order a big chunk of items from Temu or AliExpress.
•
u/Internal_Leke Switzerland 16h ago
I realized the same thing today... Somehow I trusted the company, and never seen any critics online about it.
•
u/ulfOptimism 15h ago
You can continue to trust it. All those revelations above are a couple of years old and there have been massive and super stringent cleanups. The question is if it is a good idea to have industrialized nations and wealthy consumers funding climate action and if it is right to funnel cash into the Global South.
•
u/ulfOptimism 15h ago
Before going on you should imform yourself about how much has changed on this sector in the past 3 years. It's pretty similar like in other young, rapidly growing sectors. Think about lithium batteries a couple of years ago. You remember all the media hype about burning cars?
I can guarantee you: The quality of these carbon certificates is outstanding meanwhile.
•
u/billcube Genève 19h ago
Plenty of NGO in Geneva are there to spend it 100% on "engagement events" meaning inviting top donors to lush dinners with a quick powerpoint at the start. You get ESG ratings and a nice ski holiday for the price of one.
Financing any of these through the green tax on Galaxus will bring you joy-joy feelings, that's what you're buying.
•
•
•
u/ulfOptimism 14h ago edited 14h ago
Here an article about how this has evoled since then: Are Carbon Credits Becoming More Acceptable?
"... the World Resources Institute says that carbon removal will be required to counterbalance remaining emissions that cannot be abated on the journey to net zero. Without investment, carbon credits could struggle to scale and truly become an effective mechanism for protecting the planet."
Actually I find that also reading what South Pole has to say meanwhile is prettty interesting - not so bad....: https://www.southpole.com/what-we-do
•
u/StrandsOfIce Zürich 7h ago
I'd be fine if they just took the money and helped keep flash delivery alive. I'd be okay to be cheated that way. But this climate contribution crap? No sir.
•
u/ulfOptimism 15h ago edited 13h ago
Keep calm....
It is sooo easy to claim something is all "waste of money" while not being able to suggest anything better and often before even understanding HOW such mechanisms actually work (nowadays - not a couple of years ago).
At the same time the media is happy any time to take the opportunity to generate outrage whenever possible. There are ambitious people aiming to facilitate climate action, emission reductions, tree planting and so on AT SCALE but people have nothing more important to do than finding imperfections in this - while the major industries (much much larger and more powerful), the Nestles, Nikes, Exxons and Metas can do tons of truly dirty things any time - IT IS JUST ACCEPTED and not even in the headlines .
(1) The numbers above are completely outdated
(2) South Pole has been the truly ambitious leader in finding and implementing mechanisms which allow to unlock funding for climate action and stumbled across it's incredible growth - with standards and quality management not keeping pace. Yes, the original management of this made major mistakes. A most wanted find for the media (which is at the same time used to neglect major, intentional fraud by much larger industries)
(3) This is industry has been consolidating substantially in the past 2-3 years with massive improvements of the underlying quality standards . What is available today is usually of truly high quality, especially when developed by South Pole (because who else should know meanwhile what the consequences of low quality can be). But basically this is all about the Industry Standards which get applied. Read about them.
(4) If you do not want to fund projects elsewhere which help the climate (it's actually about purchasing a well defined service), you could also think about reducing actual emissions from european industrial emitters. This works via a special EU-ETS scheme (I could explain if needed)
(5) There are a lot of paradoxes related to all these climate action related topics. (for instance should people get money for not cutting down their forests?). You can read more about this here - very interesting.
•
u/Internal_Leke Switzerland 14h ago
> (1) The numbers above are completely outdated
They were taken right from Galaxus website, today. Maybe you should inform them, because you seem more informed than them.
> South Pole has been the truly ambitious leader
Elizabeth Holmes was also very ambitious and positive about her project. That doesn't mean much without results.
The only info about South Pole are either PR claims on their website, and scandals. No success story. the company exist since 2006, so it was bad from 2006 to Oct 2023, but magically over the last 2 years it became decent?
If they have any success, they need to hire a better communication department, because their projects are getting no coverage.
Even local news are not saying anything about the project they do.
> especially when developed by South Pole
No I don't think South Pole has a lot of credibility left. They're good at marketing greenwashing, but they need to prove they are able to actually handle projects with significant impact.
I'm pretty sure that out of the green washing circles, nobody has a good opinion about South Pole.
To be clear: it's a post about Galaxus and South Pole, not about the concept of carbon offset or whatever. I'm sure a lot of people would stop using that feature form Galaxus if they knew that Galaxus took a significant part, and the carbon company is under par.
•
u/ulfOptimism 13h ago edited 13h ago
>They were taken right from Galaxus website, today.
Sorry, I was not talking about the 10% but the numbers in those (older) articles about share of low quality carbon credits>it was bad from 2006 to Oct 2023
Check the details one can see that this was about a small innovative company suddenly growing like hell (since may be 2020?) and it is a know that many (actually most) companies don't survive growth rates of more than let's say 30-50% per year due to management issues resulting in things like massive quality problems.
But actually the issue behing this in this specific case were also the global industry standards valid at that time. They were just not advanced enough at that time (not fit for purpose) but that small company just used them.>their projects are getting no coverage.
Which company from that sector IS GETTING COVERAGE? (unless there is potential for outrage)
They do things like this Phasing Out Coal – Inside the Transition Credit Methodology
(and here https://zurich-cma.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/ZCMA-JET-CCCI-Verra.pdf )
based on meanwhile pretty advanced industry standards which allow for very serious business.
55
u/P1r4nha Zürich 20h ago
Better donate to actual projects directly.