Should your company buy carbon offsets?

One of the statements one hears from companies attempting to improve their environmental impact is the desire to become carbon neutral, typically through carbon offsets. Although it’s a fantastic idea, as any organization that has gone through this process can confirm, it could be overly challenging.

You could believe that if your company pays to offset its annual greenhouse gas emissions, an instantaneous greenhouse gas reduction equivalent to your emissions is made possible. Therefore, your business is “carbon neutral” in the sense that it makes no overall contribution to the atmospheric concentration of carbon. However, given the nature of offsets, it is likely that even after purchasing offsets, your company is overall increasing carbon emissions.

Offsetting as a type of greenwashing, how carbon reductions offered for sale are assessed, and whether offset providers actually do what they claim to do have dominated media coverage of offsets. All of those queries are significant, but there are more fundamental queries regarding the objectives of carbon offset purchasing.

Here, an analogy is helpful. Consider a bathtub: each gallon of water in the tub symbolizes one ton of atmospheric carbon. In the bathtub example, 20 gallons of water would be used to represent the 20 tons of carbon emissions that the average American is accountable for year. The total volume of water in all of the world’s bathtubs determines the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

Your bathtub’s water level climbs by 20 gallons year without any compensation. If you buy offsets, you might believe that your purchase depletes the bathtub of 20 gallons of water, leaving the water level unchanged from the previous year. When most people think of “carbon neutrality,” this is what they see.

The truth is more complex than that. Someone may have removed some water from their bathtub, and you are paying them for their activities by purchasing credits that were generated by that person’s earlier actions. You are essentially paying them to remove some water from your bathtub, but the water doesn’t actually go away. Instead, it ends up in another person’s bathtub.

As an alternative, you can be contributing money toward future greenhouse gas reductions. If everything goes according to plan, the offsets will reduce the water in your bathtub by 20 gallons, but it will take a while and you’ll still be adding water at a rate of 20 gallons each year during that time.

Offset providers are not unethically questionable, which is the cause of the misconception. Instead, the majority of investments in carbon reduction include high upfront costs and reduced greenhouse gas emissions over ten, twenty, or even fifty years or more. The great bulk of the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions this year are the consequence of prior efforts. Furthermore, the greenhouse gas reduction efforts made today will continue for a very long time.

There are numerous distinct “items” available for purchase as offsets, and various retail offset suppliers provide various product mixtures. You can pick the types of offsets you want to purchase from some offset suppliers. It’s helpful to look at the various types of offsets available on the retail market in order to understand what you receive (and what you don’t get) when you buy offsets.

By purchasing carbon offsets, you support charitable groups that work to reduce global warming. These groups typically concentrate on the creation of greener energy sources, the adoption of sustainable farming practices, and the promotion of renewable means of transportation. They are able to offer these services because of donations from conscientious businesspeople like you.

There is always some degree of environmental influence on every firm. Your business does not, however, need to be taking any specific measures to be eligible for a program when it comes to carbon offsets. Simply buy credits is all that is required. In other words, you don’t have to put in extra effort to ensure that your company’s operations are as environmentally friendly as possible. You can easily buy the credits required to completely offset your company’s emissions. Therefore, you don’t need to worry about finding more ways to go green; you can start right away.

If you want to demonstrate to clients and staff that you care about the environment, investing in carbon offset programs is a wonderful place to start. It’s a great way to show how committed you are to preserving the environment. It’s always a good idea to demonstrate your concern for the environment, whether you’re trying to win over new customers or boost employee morale. Since everyone is impacted by climate change, we must all contribute to the effort to stop it.

You should also be aware of carbon offsetting because it can improve staff morale. Employees are more likely to be content at work when they believe they are making a difference by supporting a worthwhile cause. You should share the same values as your employees if you are a business owner. A smart approach to achieve this is to offset your business’ carbon footprint. It’s a terrific technique to give your staff the impression that they do more than just work for you. Instead, they work for a group dedicated to enhancing the environment.

How are these businesses responding to the difficulty? Delta has resorted to buying voluntary carbon offsets to address some of its inevitable emissions and to get ready for upcoming legislation because it has few other choices to cut emissions (there isn’t yet carbon-neutral aircraft fuel). They’re not alone, either. Of the 1,896 businesses that publicly disclosed data to CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) in 2014, 248 made investments in initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions outside of their core business operations, spending the equivalent of 39.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO2e).

Other companies are adopting a different strategy by creating offsets inside their own supply chains. L’Oréal, for example, achieves this by giving cleaner-burning stoves to Burkinabe women who boil the shea nuts used in its beauty products. In total, 79 companies reduced emissions within their own activities or supply chains by 102.4 MtCO2e in 2014, frequently to fulfill voluntary objectives.

Businesses are beginning to assess climate risk and include it in their operations budgets in addition to offsetting, as some have plans to do in the upcoming years. Others, including Barclays, Disney, Microsoft, and Swiss Re, even go so far as to charge its business divisions a fee based on their emissions, encouraging them to lessen their carbon footprint and earning money that can then be investment in energy efficiency or used to buy offsets.

If your business wants to contribute funds to lowering the atmospheric concentration of carbon, start by making adjustments to lower your own carbon footprint. Such investments frequently benefit the environment as well as your wallet over time. You may lessen your carbon footprint and boost your bottom line by switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs, using hybrid vehicles for the company’s fleet, and implementing building management systems to cut down on energy waste.

Offset purchases are something to think about if you want to do more. Many projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions rely heavily on the income from offset purchases. If you do decide to purchase offsets, spend some time investigating the different offset suppliers. Visit their websites to find out more. Their projects and calculations are more likely to be able to withstand criticism the more open they are ready to be.

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