All of Cooler’s investments adhere to strict guidelines set by our Technical Advisory Committee To provide trusted, high quality results, Cooler carefully scrutinizes each project under the following Cooler RAP (Real, Additional and Positive) guidelines:
Real
Investments must be verified as real and assured to be permanent. The impact of all Cooler investments is calculated using scientifically rigorous methodologies, must be verified and validated by independent third parties, have clear ownership, be registered, and be tracked. The emission reductions must have a permanent impact and cannot simply be moving emissions elsewhere. In short, they must be real.
Additional
Emissions from our investments must be additional. ‘Additionality,’ or going beyond business as usual, is what defines an activity as an emissions reduction. An activity is additional if it overcomes existing barriers—financial, legal, regulatory, or even common practice. Additionality is an opportunity to push solutions to global warming that otherwise would not happen for lack of money or lack of motivation.
Positive Social and Environmental Impact
The overall net impact of an investment must be positive to the environment and society. Cooler seeks multi-benefit projects, ones that reduce emissions, and provide other environmental and human benefits, such as preventing water pollution or creating jobs.
What is Cooler doing to guarantee results?
Cooler has a rigorous quality control and feedback system in place for the way we calculate the impact of your purchases and to ensure the quality of our investments.
- Calculations: Besides using a peer-reviewed calculator with a strong scientific foundation, we check in with our vendors and customers about the accuracy of our calculations in four ways:
- We monitor purchases electronically and check our assumptions against the overall shopping patterns of our customers. This allows us to continuously fine-tune our carbon calculator and to collect the data we need to provide you better information and to make our calculations more accurate.
- With your permission, we randomly check a sample of purchases online or by calling our customers to make sure nothing is slipping through the cracks.
- We employ an independent auditor to regularly verify that we are meeting our commitment to eliminate the global warming impact of every purchase.
- We invite our customers to ask us about our calculations. After shopping, you can always ask our experts to explain our calculation and help us improve it on a real-time basis.
- Emission Reductions: All of the projects we invest in are third-party verified and the emission reductions we purchase from them are registered so they can only be used once. In addition, Cooler has its own rigorous due diligence process to ensure that projects meet high standards for environmental and community impact.