Carbon Offsets

The large majority of offsetting projects in Australia and worldwide involve using plants to capture carbon, most often by planting trees and forests or preserving forests that would otherwise be cut down.  Other projects might fund emissions reductions elsewhere where it is cheaper to do so, for instance replacing fossil fuels with renewables in poorer communities.

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There are two things to make you cautious about offsetting.

1. It is always better to avoid or reduce your own emissions than to offset them.  Every tonne of greenhouse gases emitted contributes to the damage, and if you emit and then offset, there is damage being done in the meantime.  This means offsetting should be a last resort, and preferably a temporary strategy while you work out how to eliminate emissions from your operation.

2. Offsets are not always what they seem.  The offsets market is full of schemes which either do nothing (doing something that the person or company would have done anyway, for instance claiming offsets for patches of forest which would not have been cleared in any case), only capture carbon temporarily (for instance, planting trees that are later cut down for timber), do not ensure the offsets last (for instance, planting trees but not tending them, or providing renewable energy to poor communities but not the skills or resources to maintain the infrastructure) or cause other environmental and social problems (for instance, damaging water tables or creating mono-cultures that don’t support native wildlife, or increasing energy costs for poor communities).

 

You can read some analysis and critique of offsets here , here  or here for a view of similar issues in the US market.  Eco-tourism Australia has a more positive view and provides some handy tips here.

 

If you do decide you should participate in the offsets market, there are a number of certification schemes which at least provide some level of quality control on the offsets you buy. 

• Gold Standard is an international certification scheme based in Switzerland set up by WWF and other environmental charities to ‘ensure projects that reduced carbon emissions featured the highest levels of environmental integrity and also contributed to sustainable development’.

• The Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) (https://verra.org/project/vcs-program/ ) is a registration scheme set up by US-based consortium Verra. 

 

The Australian government also has a set of standards which it uses to certify Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) which can be used to offset excess emissions by large Australian companies whose emissions are capped under the Safeguard Mechanism while the Australian Government also accepts Certified Emission Reduction Units certified by the UN under the UN Framework on Climate Change.

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All this is complex, confusing and highly technical, and much of it is designed for large companies.  Given that your carbon emissions are likely to be way smaller than, say, BHP-Billiton’s and you do not have to account for your emissions under any regulatory scheme, you can make this a lot simpler by purchasing offsets through a carbon retailer, ideally from one that functions as a charity and is rooted in the environment sector.  The Australian Carbon Marketplace has a listing of carbon retailers – you may be able to find one in or near your community to deal with, and they will then put you in touch with schemes and sell you units to offset your emissions. 

 

Two of the largest ones highlighted by the Carbon Marketplace can serve to give you an idea of how they operate.

• Carbon Positive is a charity based on Western Australia and originally founded by the environmental group Men of the Trees.  It supports a number of tree-planting and land restoration projects, mostly in Western Australia.  It offers a relatively simple carbon footprint calculator and this will lead directly to a calculation of the amount of units you need to purchase to offset your emissions.

• Greenfleet is a long-standing environmental charity based in Victoria which also focuses on tree planting and reforestation, working with local communities around Australia and also in New Zealand.  Rather than offer a calculator to calculate your own emissions in provides ‘typical’ annual offset amounts for cars, flights, deliveries or a ‘per employee’ estimate, or else you can offset a certain number of tonnes of emissions if you have worked out your own impact.

 

This by no means exhausts the possibilities – these are just to give you an idea of how it works.  Have a look for yourself, see who you can find in your community or State, and always remember, it’s Buyer Beware so make sure you do your due diligence.