Ritual is committed to protecting people’s health, so we are just as serious about addressing its role in the biggest health threat of our time: climate change.

Ritual’s Entire Product Line is Now CarbonFree Certified

Ritual now has offset the carbon emissions for all of our products through the CarbonFree Certification program. While we know offsetting the carbon from our products will not solve the climate crisis we are still making these critical renewable energy investments while simultaneously doing the work needed to hit our aspirational goal of Net Zero emissions by 2030.

We Think of Offsets as Investments in Critical Renewable Infrastructure, Not the Solution to Reducing Carbon from our Products

“Net Zero” means reducing emissions first while using any offsets as a last resort (there are even limits to how much offsets can be used to achieve the goal). We prefer to speak to offsets as investments in renewable energy infrastructure, as the term “offset” can make people believe that emissions are canceled out, which isn’t the case. We first want to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses being released through our decarbonization planning, while also making these critical renewable energy investments.

How We Know Our Carbon Footprint

The juiciest takeaway from our quest to be CarbonFree Certified was work we did to create custom, science based carbon footprints for each product. We partnered with leaders in the field at PlanetFWD and they measured everything from how far ingredients traveled, to the carbon impacts of our packaging materials, even asking us detailed questions about the manufacturing equipment used to accurately paint a picture of the products entire carbon footprint.

This work is critical because Ritual now has detailed and actionable information we can use to start to reduce the carbon in our product line and work towards our Net Zero goal.

Case Study: Our Plant Based Protein Powder Uses 9x Less Carbon than Conventional Whey

Information at this level is helpful, but what is even more exciting is drilling down more into each product’s ingredients, packaging, production, distribution, consumer use, and end-of-life carbon emission. Let’s take a look at our Essential Protein.

With this information, we can start to make choices that reduce our carbon footprint like swapping certain materials or encouraging suppliers to use reusable energy in production. We also get tangible evidence that some of our choices are already paying off. Like our choice to use regenerative peas for our Essential Protein. This had a significant impact on emissions (-0.973 kg CO2e), resulting in Essential Protein 18+ having a negative total ingredient footprint. This is possible due to organic and regenerative soils having the ability to sequester more carbon than conventional farmlands.

We can also use this as a tool to compare what other ingredient choices may look like. When comparing pea protein to whey, we can see that peas are nine times less carbon intensive† than using conventional whey protein concentrate, a valorized byproduct of milk.

† Whey comparable used same formulation of Ritual 18+ formula but subbed in animal derived ingredients.

The Future of Ritual’s Climate Program

The reality is that climate goals have to be aggressive. It’s dire. No one knows precisely how to get there, but our philosophy will remain the same: try hard to get there and share the journey with you and our competitors publicly. We’ll continue to look to top climate scientists for guidance, invest in leading climate platforms, and take actionable steps toward that goal. We will continue to share the detailed steps we are taking to decarbonize our supply chain, thank you for joining us in this journey.