What is Carbon Offsetting?

Carbon offsetting projects usually fall into one of four categories:

Forestry and Conservation: This could involve regrowing, replanting, or protecting trees around the world. It’s an activity that’s popular because trees can effectively soak up CO2, while the forests, jungles and rainforests protect and serve as a habitat for vital ecosystems.

Rewilding also falls into the conservation category. It sees animals and plant life reintroduced to ecosystems, with the hope that they’ll bring biodiversity and a natural rhythm to the landscape, which will in turn help to repair any damage.

Renewable Energy: Solar, hydro and wind power generation sites are used to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels – all while generating substantial amounts of energy and creating jobs in the process.

Waste to Energy: Its title says it all really – these schemes are all about turning waste into electricity. So, this could mean capturing gas from landfill sites or using human and agricultural waste to generate valuable energy. The knock-on effect of this is that it can help with conservation efforts – because the waste sources replace firewood.

Community-Focussed Initiatives: These projects normally focus on lesser developed countries and aim to introduce technologies and methods that help communities to become more energy efficient. Additionally, these initiatives can also help to boost living conditions.

Although all these activities can be seen as positive, carbon offsetting has its critics. Some quarters have argued that these initiatives don’t necessarily offset the carbon being emitted by businesses – i.e., it’s not a one-for-one solution.

Greenpeace, in particular, has argued these schemes, while by no means bad, they aren’t really doing what they’re advertised to do. It’s said one of the biggest initiatives, planting trees, can’t have the same impact as slashing carbon emissions.

However, others, like Climate Care’s Robert Stevens, have said they feel businesses paying to reduce an equivalent amount of carbon emissions is probably the most cost-effective, fastest, and most efficient way of trying to tackle the issue.

There’s a balance. Is carbon offsetting greenwashing? If it’s treated as a PR exercise to boost brand reputation in the public eye, potentially. It’s something that needs to go hand-in-hand with a genuine effort to reduce carbon emissions as part of a thought-out strategy.

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