F**k off(sets). Why bad language threatens genuine verified emission reductions.

*all views expressed in this article are my own

In the lead up to COP26 this year an extraordinary thing happened. Greenpeace, one of the world's best known environmental and social justice organisations (where I once proudly interned), called for the immediate termination of thousands of projects which conserve and restore forests, reduce indoor air pollution, provide electricity to rural communities and channel hundreds of millions (soon to be billions) of private capital into developing economies each year. Greta followed suit with the same message. They were calling for carbon offsets to be ended.?

How the f**k did it come to this? And is bad language at least partly to blame? After hearing the arguments loudly from both sides, and taking some time to reflect on what’s driving this huge divide within the environmental community, my feeling is that it’s the misuse/debate around the terms carbon offset and carbon neutral that may be the cause of the ill-feeling rather than the actual ‘offsets’ themselves.?

What the f**k is a carbon offset?

Herein lies our first problem. When people talk about buying a carbon offset, what they actually mean is that they have enabled a results-based payment for a verified emission reduction (VER) of one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent audited by an independent third party. This VER, which can either be generated from avoiding a tonne of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere or by removing a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere, is also, and more widely, known as a carbon credit.?

The problem is, that's all a bit of a mouthful and rather boring. So someone, at some stage over 20 years ago, likely with good intentions, decided to hijack the word 'offset' as shorthand to describe this strange phenomenon. And it caught on.?

The dictionary definition of the word offset is 'a consideration or amount that diminishes or balances the effect of an opposite one'. It is meant to be used as a verb or adjective and is often used subjectively, for example: the extra cost of traveling to work is offset by lower house prices in this area.?

So the problem is that a technical noun with a very specific meaning (VER), was replaced by a subjective verb/adjective in common discourse. It's the equivalent of relabelling a 1 kilo beef steak as a ‘tasty'. For some people that may very well be true, for others it’s offensive and untrue.??

And what the f**k is carbon neutral?

Our second, linked, problem is the different interpretations of the phrase 'carbon neutral'. For the IPCC (and many other scientific working groups such as the influential Science Based Targets Initiative) carbon neutral means a ‘condition where anthropogenic CO2 emissions are balanced by CO2 removals’. According to this definition carbon neutral and net-zero are near synonyms.?

Figure 1: Extract from Science Based Targets paper 'towards a science based approach to climate neutrality in the corporate sector'

Yet corporations and other participants in carbon markets have for years been defining this term differently. Instead it’s been colloquially defined as ‘purchasing a corresponding amount of carbon offsets (credits) to match one’s carbon footprint’. And to complicate matters further, the shorthand for this has become ‘to have offset one’s footprint'. This has sent the naysayers wild with rage.?

The main issue is that the simplicity of the term fails to capture the fundamental nuance in the difference between avoided credits (e.g. REDD+, cookstoves, renewables) and removal credits (e.g. reforestation, direct air capture and storage).

?Figure 2. Taxonomy of VERs. Credit: Respira International.

This issue is then exacerbated by the fact that ‘avoided credits’ have accounted for over 90% of those ever issued (and will likely continue to dominate the market in the near future as removal projects – for example, tree planting - take longer to deliver results).

?So Greenpeace and others have some scientific heavyweights backing up their argument that purchasing a corresponding amount of predominantly avoided carbon credits does not, according to the strict IPCC definition, mean you are ‘carbon neutral’ or have 'offset' your footprint. It simply means that you have prevented a further tonne from being emitted somewhere else.?The diagram below explains the confusion.

Figure 3: Adapted from Swiss Re

Yet I still passionately believe that purchasing a corresponding amount of high quality ‘avoided’ VERs (credits) to match one’s residual carbon footprint is a very worthwhile thing to be doing. To use a bathtub analogy, to drain a bath, first you need to turn off the taps! And we need all the help we can get to turn off those carbon taps. Although it’s not removing a tonne, it’s preventing a further one from being released and the best projects create real, certified impact not just for climate, but for people and biodiversity too. At the very least it helps size the amount of money corporations should be paying into these types of projects as ‘compensation’. For example if a corporation has 10 million tonnes of emissions and wants to purchase an equivalent amount of REDD+ credits, at today’s prices this could amount to around $100m being injected into forest conservation by that corporation. The alternative? It goes back to being a nice CSR play and maybe $100,000 gets invested into the forest by the corporation that year. ????

But labelling this as ‘carbon neutral’ or as having 'offset' one’s footprint is just inviting unneeded criticism. The use of the terms gets further confused when we start to think about Article 6 and whether a ‘corresponding adjustment’ needs to be applied. We need new terms which are recognised by everyone and can be seen as credible milestones on the pathway to net zero. We hope that the soon to be published guidance on claims by the Voluntary Carbon Market Integrity Initiative (VCMI) can help to set the framework. ??

I've only fully grasped this problem with bad language recently. I've been guilty of using these terms for years without really thinking of the implications until I started reflecting on the Greenpeace statement and some private messages I received from well-respected friends bashing offsets. My previous blog about why I'm a convert to carbon offsets was in hindsight titled incorrectly. If I was writing it today I'd have said 'why I'm a convert to the voluntary carbon market'.

Surely it's not just a question of bad language...??

So, is all the fuss just because of a comical misunderstanding based on misuse of the English language? Well of course, it’s not just that. There have also been bad actors on both the corporate side (purchasers) and project developers (sellers). I also think there’s a genuine question about whether these terms have been wilfully misused in a deliberate attempt to mislead (as implied by Greenpeace), or whether there’s a much more innocent explanation which reflects humanity’s tendency to look for simple terms which are easy to say and remember.?However, on balance, in my experience the majority of projects generating VERs I’ve encountered are doing more good than harm on the ground (see this blog), the most commonly used standards such as Verra and Gold Standard are way more rigorous than they are given credit for, and I do think that other issues around integrity can be and are being resolved (see the various taskforces such as the IC-VCM(formerly TSCVM) and VCMI ).

But my feeling remains that this polemic split on this issue within the environmental movement (which just creates confusion and distrust for outsiders) would be diffused significantly if there wasn’t such a widespread misuse of language. I’d certainly hate to see the whole thing chucked out of the window largely because of a misunderstanding. In this instance, bad language really does matter, and all of us who are proponents of the voluntary carbon market need to do better.?

A more constructive path..?

By following the approach below, I see a much more constructive path for all parties to use voluntary verified emissions reductions (carbon credits) without so much controversy. It ensures that direct emissions reductions are prioritised first, but that both high quality avoidance and removal credits are used in addition to (not instead of) direct emissions reductions along the pathway.??

?Figure 4: Credit: Respira International

Feedback

I‘d love to hear feedback on what people think are appropriate terms which could be used and would lessen controversy. In particular:

Should the word ‘offset’ be replaced? And if yes, with what - bearing in mind we need terms which are easy for people to use and understand?

I’ve started only using carbon credit as the noun, but even that is imperfect as it often gets confused with an emissions allowance traded in compliance markets such as the EU ETS. But Verified Emission Reduction is a bit of a mouthful and not very catchy.

Recently, I’ve noted some have started to use ‘compensate’ as the verb to describe purchasing avoided emissions or ‘neutralise’ as the verb to describe purchasing removals. This might catch on, but the word ‘neutralise’ is already misunderstood and it certainly takes much more explanation than ‘offset’.

Should the term carbon neutral be replaced to indicate when someone has bought a corresponding amount of high quality VERs (of any type) to match their residual emissions?

My view is that this is an important milestone on the pathway to net zero which should be celebrated. But ‘carbon neutral’ has become too loaded – so we could do with something else. I've seen 'carbon compensated' proposed in some quarters, but would love to see some other suggestions. ?