COP27: What's it all about?

Hello there, and welcome back to learn sustainability with Colin – we’ve got a good one for you this week and that’s because very soon COP27 will be starting.

For anyone that’s new here, let's start from the beginning…

COP stands for Conference of the Parties and it's when all the world leaders come together to talk all things climate change. The 27 simply stands for the number of conferences there has been so far, and this is the 27^th annual summit.

Last year was quite a big deal because COP26 took place in Glasgow (sounding familiar yet?) and for 12 days some of the most influential leaders across the globe came together in the Scottish capital to tackle the climate emergency together. The main outcome of COP26 was the Glasgow Climate Pact which included a commitment to phase out coal, reduce methane emissions and stop deforestation (very on brand for The Cheeky Panda).

This year, COP27 will be held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt from 6 to 18 November 2022 for the largest annual gathering on climate action. This year, key themes include renewable energy, biodiversity and deforestation to see what else we can do to limit global warming.

COP27 is looking to see what progress has made on a variety of topics such as reaching net zero carbon emissions, the financial commitments required for fighting climate change and what different countries are doing to protect communities and natural habitats that are being impacted by the extreme weather events caused by global warming.

Controversially, Coca-Cola has been announced as one of the sponsors of COP27. As one of the bigger plastic polluters on the planet is this a prime example of greenwashing? (Source: Cop27 climate summit’s sponsorship by Coca-Cola condemned as ‘greenwash’ | Cop27 | The Guardian). Does allowing an organisation like Coca-Cola to sponsor such a vital climate event undermine everything they stand for? We think so, but what is really simple is what we are doing to fight climate change and protect our planet.

If you’re familiar with The Cheeky Panda (and you better be) you’ll know that our mission is to cut carbon, reduce plastic and save trees – simple. It’s not thaaat simple though, but here’s a whistlestop tour of how we are doing it:

Carbon

Luckily for us, bamboo does most of the hard work. It’s amazing at absorbing carbon and releasing oxygen – it absorbs 35% more carbon than trees to be exact. All the carbon it absorbs gets stored in its roots where it will stay for hundreds of years. By using bamboo, we produce 65% less carbon emissions than tissue paper made from tree pulp.

To date we have removed 30,000 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere (and this is just the beginning!).

Plastic

A couple of years ago now we made the decision to ditch all the plastic from our toilet roll and kitchen roll and were the first brand to offer a plastic free pocket tissue. We did this because we knew how important it was to reduce the amount of single use plastic we create, and to stop more plastics and microplastics from making their way into our ocean. According to global statistics, there is now 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in our ocean, weighing up to 269,000 tonnes!

This is just the start of our journey to reducing the plastic across our supply chain, we are continuously looking for new and innovative solutions to further reduce our plastic consumption. We love to be accountable here at PandaHQ and we know we aren't perfect, but we are getting there.

Trees

Wonderful things aren’t they – remind me again why we cut them down to wipe our bums?  One of the key discussion points at COP27 this year is deforestation and what we can do to slow it down. Now, we might be biased but a great starting point is switching to bamboo toilet paper.

It is estimated that anywhere between 3.5-7 billion trees are cut down per year and this results in a huge amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere. So far, we have helped to save over 370,000 trees and by 2025, we aim to save 1 million.

So, there you go, a quick refresh of what COP is all about and what we can expect over the next couple of weeks. We will be keeping you up to date on what is going on at COP27 and any key outcomes so be sure to follow us on Twitter @CheekyPandaHQ. to keep up to date with the latest news. 

WAIT, that's not all. To celebrate COP27 we are offering you 27% off our 24 toilet rolls when you sign up to a subscription. Just use code COP27 and we'll do the rest. 

What outcomes are you hoping to see from COP27? Let us know in the comments below.

See you next time!