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Case Study

“Carbon is the new calorie”: Logitech’s carbon impact label to drive transparency in sustainability

By Julia Katharina Binder and Heather Cairns-Lee

18 pages

April 2023

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Reference: IMD-7-2416

This topical case covers the period from 2019 to 2022, when Prakash Arunkundrum, head of global operations and sustainability at Logitech, was focusing on reducing the company’s carbon footprint. It recounts how he and his team gained internal support to embark on an ambitious carbon labeling initiative and created a transparent methodology to assess, validate and communicate the life cycle carbon value of Logitech’s products. The case highlights Logitech’s journey to becoming climate positive, based on four key pillars; 1) reducing carbon in its products, 2) transitioning to renewable energies, 3) restoring forests and supporting climate impacted communities, and 4) rethinking how to support and enable reuse. However, Prakash realized that the real hurdle would be gaining industry-wide adoption of carbon labeling by other companies and competitors in the tech sector. Logitech tried to garner support for Carbon Clarity by making its approach open source, by investing significant time and energy to raise awareness about the benefits of carbon labeling, and by holding discussions with interested companies, including competitors. Yet despite interest from other companies, they had not yet committed to supporting Carbon Clarity. Prakash was baffled as to why they would not commit and wondered how to make progress to drive sustainability.

Learning Objective

Understand how to shift attitudes and behaviors toward sustainability through the introduction of carbon labeling.
Examine the key challenges in engaging stakeholders in sustainability initiatives.
Understand how to frame messages to communicate sustainability effectively.

Keywords

Sustainability, Communication, Leadership, Carbon Labelling, Framing, Stakeholder Engagement, Industry Innovation, Industry Infrastructure, Responsible Consumption, Responsible Production, Goal Partnerships

Settings

World/global, United States of America
Logitech, Manufacturing, Electric and Electronic Equipment, Manufacturing, Computer Hardware
2020-2022

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

Related material

Teaching note, Video

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