Probably something along the lines of “not negative or positive, but in the middle”. Basically a synonym for net zero except net zero may account for other GHGs while carbon neutral may only refer explicitly to carbon. If the process releases CO2 at some points and absorbs the same amount of CO2 elsewhere, then it would be net zero or carbon neutral. But if you release carbon that was stored for 100s of millions of years and would have continued to be stored otherwise and then just store that same amount of carbon for 1-5 years, then you aren’t really offsetting and aren’t really carbon neutral. Given none of the offset programs seem to have presented concrete evidence for long-term storage, they’re worthless in this context. I suppose you could fund short-term storage indefinitely, but how could Apple prove that they’re going to be able to fund carbon offsets for a watched purchased today in 75 years? If funding a lumber farm program that harvests trees after 15 years, I suppose you could just fund it every 15 years after an item is manufactured indefinitely? But how would a company demonstrate they’re going to continue doing that in 75 years?
Probably something along the lines of “not negative or positive, but in the middle”. Basically a synonym for net zero except net zero may account for other GHGs while carbon neutral may only refer explicitly to carbon. If the process releases CO2 at some points and absorbs the same amount of CO2 elsewhere, then it would be net zero or carbon neutral. But if you release carbon that was stored for 100s of millions of years and would have continued to be stored otherwise and then just store that same amount of carbon for 1-5 years, then you aren’t really offsetting and aren’t really carbon neutral. Given none of the offset programs seem to have presented concrete evidence for long-term storage, they’re worthless in this context. I suppose you could fund short-term storage indefinitely, but how could Apple prove that they’re going to be able to fund carbon offsets for a watched purchased today in 75 years? If funding a lumber farm program that harvests trees after 15 years, I suppose you could just fund it every 15 years after an item is manufactured indefinitely? But how would a company demonstrate they’re going to continue doing that in 75 years?