The landowner would be taking advantage of the offset system to collect a windfall for doing exactly what he would have done anyway. What if the Amazonian landowner never had any intention of clear-cutting his land in the first place? Then your purchase would be a gift rather than an offset. This is the trickiest issue with carbon offsets. If the guy who gets your money can burn his trees to the ground six months later, your money will have been wasted.įinally, the offset must be additional. Relatedly, the offset should be verifiedand enforceable-a third party should have laid eyes on the trees, and there must be a mechanism for penalizing the landowner if he doesn’t follow through. This guarantee shouldn’t be necessary, but unfortunately there have been cases of groups collecting money for offset projects that don’t yet exist. First, that the offsets are real-that there’s an actual landowner who owns actual land with actual trees. The offset seller should make several guarantees in this transaction. Let’s consider a hypothetical example, in which the offset seller will give your money to a landowner in the Amazon who promises to leave his trees standing to maximize carbon sequestration. How can you ensure you’re supporting a quality carbon offset project? The money the landowner makes from selling the offsets is used to pay for the cost of implementing the project and maintaining it over time, providing a financial incentive to conserve the forest as opposed to cutting it down.Īs a consumer, it’s important to choose offsets that are carefully designed and diligently implemented and measured-lest you end up buying into a scam. A company will purchase credits from these landowners that represent the avoided emissions to compensate for its pollution. They most often feature a property owner who gets paid to preserve, re-plant, or delay the development of their land. Around the globe, forest conservation projects are the most common type of offset project. How do carbon credits work?Įach carbon offset credit is associated with the emission reduction from a specific project, and a single credit typically represents one metric ton of carbon dioxide (the equivalent of driving 2,513 miles in an average gasoline-powered car). Low-quality carbon offsets were once common, so you first have to do some legwork to ensure authenticity. Should you buy them? Yes, but selectively.

Some airline websites, for example, offer the option to buy them from third-party sellers like Terrapass, Native Energy, Green E, or Cool Effect, which provide calculators to estimate the amount you need to neutralize the footprint of your trip. If you’ve purchased plane tickets in recent years, you’ve almost certainly been given the opportunity to buy carbon offsets.

Offset projects encompass a range of initiatives that actively conserve forests, wetlands, and grasslands (all of which store climate-warming carbon dioxide), or which otherwise reduce emissions from sources like landfills, farms, and coal mines. Such is the promise of carbon offsets-a set of credits purchased from projects that are designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

For consumers looking to shrink their personal contribution to climate change, the opportunity to counteract the environmental cost of air travel and other fossil fuel-guzzling activities offers a dose of hope.

Buy carbon credits