Activities such as air travel, manufacturing goods, electricity, heating with oil or gas, etc. cause CO2 emissions, which are calculated in an eco-balance. A person or a company can compensate for this. For example, it buys the necessary amount of CO2 certificates and uses them to finance reforestation or other projects. These remove CO2 from the atmosphere or prevent emissions. Mondaine Group works exclusively with CO2 reduction from the atmosphere through reforestation.

A product or service, a company or even an individual process can be CO2 or climate neutral. CO2 neutrality means that this product, the process, the brand or the entire company has neither a positive nor a negative impact on the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere through the relevant gases. In order to achieve CO2 neutrality, emissions are reduced or avoided entirely. Emissions that cannot be prevented can be neutralized by offsetting at another location. Today this mostly happens with the purchase of CO2 certificates; at Mondaine Group by those with reforestation.

This describes a process to reduce CO₂ emissions. The use of fossil fuels is replaced by renewable energy sources. (The "C" in CO2 stands for carbon)

ESG stands for Environmental, Social, & Governance. For this purpose, standards for sustainable behavior of companies are determined. Companies should be active in the 3 areas. "ESG" is used by investors, for example, as a framework for sustainable behavior by companies.

Global Reporting Initiative GRI is a standard for writing a sustainability report. This should make them more complete and easier to compare.

A process or a company is climate positive or CO2 negative if it removes more CO2 emissions from the air than it causes.

Climate neutrality means that a process or activity does not affect the climate. The terms CO2 neutral, CO2-e neutral and climate neutral can be seen as symonyms. For this, however, all relevant gases of the greenhouse gas protocol such as CO2, methane, etc. must be converted into CO2 equivalents (CO2-e) in the life cycle assessment.

A process or a company is climate negative or CO2 positive if it offsets fewer CO2 emissions than it causes. This corresponds to the conventional model in which emissions are not compensated.

Global warming of the climate. Since the beginning of industrialization, the use of oil, coal and gas and the growth of ruminant agriculture have increased the proportion of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This led to an increase in average temperatures. Rising sea levels and water temperatures, droughts, storms, forest fires and glacial retreat are the effects.

The 1987 Brundtland Report described ecological sustainability: "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without risking that future generations will not be able to meet their own needs."
Sustainability includes not only ecology, but also, for example, durable, repairable, recyclable or compostable products, long-term corporate goals and durable design, etc., as well as social stability and fairness.

Negative emissions are approaches to removing climate-damaging gases from the atmosphere. They are an elementary part of the net zero approach.

Net zero refers to a global concept: It means that greenhouse gases are reduced as far as possible and the remaining global greenhouse gas emissions are withdrawn from the atmosphere again through natural and technical processes, such as reforestation.
A company can also be net zero if it causes practically no more CO2 emissions. Compensation of one's own emissions through reduction projects are only permitted to a minimum of 10%.

The effects on the environment are measured with a life cycle assessment. Originally, the balance sheet over the life cycle of a product was considered. Today, life cycle assessments are also calculated for services and behavior. A life cycle assessment is always related to a precisely defined function, eg "the use of a watch for 30 years". The life cycle assessment calculates the environmental impact of all processes that are necessary for this function, i.e. for our watches, e.g. the manufacture of the materials including packaging, the manufacture of the watch, all transport, heating and electricity, the treatment of the watch at the end of its life, etc.

This globally recognized approach defines goals for an industry or a company, derived from the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees and derives from this which greenhouse gas reductions a company or an industry must achieve in the next few years. The "1.5 degree target" is the necessary target according to scientific consensus, therefore "science based".
In addition to greenhouse gas targets, the UN is also developing "Science-based targets for nature", which should allow biodiversity to be protected.

With the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UNO defined 17 sustainability goals, the SDGs – Sustainable Development Goals. For each goal there are many sub-goals. The SDGs are goals for states. But companies can also align their activities with the SDGs.

The greenhouse effect describes a natural process without which there could be no life on earth: the sun's rays warm the earth and the greenhouse gases retain this heat in the atmosphere. They are responsible for the Earth's climate. However, humans have significantly changed the content of greenhouse gases. Their proportion in the atmosphere has increased since the beginning of industrialization and is increasing. As a result, the atmosphere has been warming since the mid-19th century, particularly strongly since the mid-20th century.

Greenhouse gases occur naturally, but are also massively caused by humans. The best-known GHGs are CO2, methane and nitrous oxide.