What is a Carbon Offset?

A carbon offset is a way of offsetting the carbon emissions of a purchase or activity.

When you buy carbon offsets, the company you bought the offsets from funds projects that balance out carbon emissions. These projects could be tree planting, green energy rollouts or farm waste management.

For example, the CEO of Cool Effect says, an offset from their company “is equal to one metric ton of carbon emissions”, that’s the equivalent to one passenger’s flight from Melbourne to Japan.

Are they actually effective?

That’s a tricky one and there are a couple of different debates around this topic.

Some critics of offsets say that they act as a way for people and companies to evade the guilt from their un-environmentally friendly activities. Offsets don’t actually force people to change their harming behaviors and take tougher measures which are needed to curb climate change. Not to bring up greenwashing this early in the article, but carbon offsets also act as a handy marketing campaign that ends up providing a cover up for companies’ with climate-harming practices.

It poses the question, if carbon offsets didn’t exist would everyone be looking to other methods to reduce their footprint instead of just offsetting it? Would companies have taken better, more long term steps such as producing more energy efficient products, switching to biofuels or reducing their waste?

On the other hand, purchasing offsets is clearly better than doing nothing at all and also helps green projects that otherwise would have struggled to find customers. Some even argue that carbon offsets allow consumers to not just offset their activities but become carbon negative if they purchase more than needed to offset their activities.

Another debate around carbon offsets largely revolves around tree planting projects. These projects receive criticisms because whilst tree planting will be beneficial in the long term when they are fully grown, by the time this happens it will be too late. The carbon reductions need to be made in the present to bring climate change to a halt. However, most of the well-known schemes have now switched to clean energy projects that are designed to make more immediate and permanent savings. Such projects include installing energy efficient light bulbs, distributing efficient cooking stoves or capturing methane gas at landfill sites. These projects also have other social benefits, for example energy efficient lighting saves money for families in developing countries.

In terms of effectiveness, carbon offsets do actually work. In 2018 (latest data available), carbon offsets accounted for a reduction of 100 million metric tons of CO2 globally which is equal to $300million worth of offsets, according to not-for-profit group, Forest Trends. However, last year we produced nearly 37 billion tons of CO2, which means we will need to purchase 370% more offsets to completely mitigate our emissions.

What I am concluding from this research is that whilst carbon offsets are not going to curb climate change by themselves, they are a step in the right direction. Perhaps, if everyone started buying carbon offsets whilst also making an effort to decrease their environmental footprint then we’d be able to mitigate the damage to our climate.

So, where can you buy offsets?

Many websites give you the option to purchase carbon offsets to offset your purchases, however if you want to go the extra mile, these companies have you covered:

NativeEnergy– NativeEnergy are approved by the leading standards, including the Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard, and Climate Action Reserve. Some of their carbon offset projects include clean water projects, solar power rollouts and wind farm developments.

Cool Effect – Cool Effect started offsetting carbon emissions in 1998 through projects such as efficient cook stoves, restoring mangrove forests and protecting Madagascar’s singular ecosystem. Every program of theirs is reviewed by at least two third party verifications.

Terrapass– Launched in 2004, Terrapass registered over 2,400 members and reduced 36 million pounds of CO2 in its first year. Terrapass’s projects include farm waste management, landfill gas capture, and wind farm development.