The inherent sensitivity of the reaction to changing local conditions is seen in literature to directly and indirectly drive many of the experimental choices in electrolyte type and concentration. Unsurprisingly, a catalyst can perform exceptionally well or poorly depending on the medium in which it is tested. The importance of the electrolyte medium on catalytic behaviour is most clearly displayed through the near ubiquitous use of low KHCO3 concentrations in reports of high selectivity C2 production on nanostructured and oxidederived Cu in H-cells. Here the poor buffering capacity of the electrolyte causes the pH close to the electrode to quickly increase at low current densities (<20 mA/cm 2 ), helping to promote C2 products and suppress the competing CH4 and H2 reactions. The morphology of the catalyst can be used to provide similar cumulative effects, which ultimately makes properly separating the direct contributions of intrinsic catalytic activity and the local environment even more difficult. To this point, the field has collectively learned to manipulate both catalysts and local electrochemical conditions as needed to optimize CO2 reduction performance metrics at primarily indiscriminate current densities. Given this widelyimplemented knowledge that the environment is critical to catalytic behaviour, and that these conditions change as a function of current density, it is our perspective that the environment at commercially-relevant current densities (>200 mA/cm 2 ) should be used as the criterion for assessing catalytic performance and suitability.