The Big Carbon Offset Lie?

Many of you will have tried carbon offset to get a carbon neutral life or at least head towards that direction. Numerous companies are springing up from everywhere offering carbon offsetting. But are they really what they claim to be?

What is Carbon offsetting?
The world can only take so much emissions of greenhouse gases. Since people in industrialised countries emit more CO2 and other greenhouse gases through e.g. flying, driving, food packaging and production, electricity usage than the earth can handle, they try to buy carbon credits through special companies. What these carbon credits do is that for e.g. 1 tonne of greenhouse gas we "over-emit" they will save up somewhere else. Since developing countries still use old and inefficient technology, it's very cheap to invest there. So by, for example, replacing a wood-burning stove with a solar-cooker, the developing country might save a tonne of CO2 per year because solar cookers don't emit greenhouse gases. And that's how a person in an industrialised country can compensate/offset the "over-emissions".

The problem: The projects aren't working
Now, according to a very well-written Guardian story, this doesn't seem to be working.

One company, Equiclimate, which is run by Christians and recommended by the [UK] government, has sold thousands of tonnes of offset which are now worthless in financial and environmental terms. It bought up some of the special permits which allow European companies to emit specified amounts of carbon. The idea was to sell them to customers who would "retire" them, thus cutting the amount of carbon which those companies could produce. But the European commission distributed 170m too many of the permits and so the thousands which have been bought by Equiclimate's customers make no difference at all. People may believe they are offsetting the emissions from their patio heaters by signing up to the Calor Gas offsetting scheme, but the sad fact is that Calor Gas is relying on 5,000 tonnes of EU permits which it bought from Equiclimate when most of the permits were already worthless. "We chose them because they were recommended by government," a Calor Gas executive said.

[...]

Atmosfair, a German offsetting group which is well regarded for its commitment to the environment, undertook to rewrite a section of its website following a phone call from the Guardian. Since 2004, it has been offering air travellers offsets which carry the gold standard awarded by a Swiss-based group backed by dozens of environmental NGOs. In an uncertain market, this gold standard is highly desirable. But none of the five projects on which Atmosfair is relying has yet produced a single verified gold standard reduction in emissions. One project was never intended to reach gold standard; one has been withdrawn; one is stalled. The remaining two - solar-powered kitchens in India and energy from palm oil waste in Thailand - are up and running, but neither has yet completed the gold standard process. Atmosfair's founder, Dietrich Brockhagen, acknowledged that what he was selling was "forward" credits even though the two projects might fail finally to generate them. "You have a point, that the customer might not understand this," he said.

Even worse, private companies that have tried to be seen as a pioneer in greenery - even in very polluting industries - have fallen way short.

It is 20 months now since British Airways proudly announced a new scheme to deal with climate change: for the first time, passengers could offset their share of the carbon produced by any flight by paying for the same amount of carbon to be taken out of the atmosphere elsewhere. "I welcome warmly this move from BA," said the then environment minister, Elliot Morley.
And how much carbon has BA offset from the estimated 27m tonnes which its planes have fired into the air since that high-profile moment in September 2005? The answer is less than 3,000 tonnes, less than 0.01% of its emissions - substantially less than the carbon dispersed by a single day of its flights between London and New York. The scheme has been, as BA's company secretary, Alan Buchanan, put it to a House of Commons select committee earlier this year, "disappointing".

The project has failed, according to one well-placed BA executive, because one part of the company wanted to improve its image by going green while another part wanted to protect its image by saying nothing at all about the impact of air travel on global warming. The result was that the scheme was launched and then banished to a dark corner of BA's website.

A couple of days later the Guardian published another article saying that certain standards need to be set, because at the moment anyone can set their own rules.

The fast-growing but increasingly criticised carbon offset industry is at risk of being discredited by "cowboy" operators unless it draws up a recognisable set of standards that customers can trust, one of the most senior figures in the sector has warned.

The comments, from Jonathan Shopley, chief executive of the CarbonNeutral Company, highlight growing unease that blue-chip businesses could turn away from carbon credits amid increasing evidence that some schemes are of dubious value.

Even worse for the fledgling industry, many environmentalists are increasingly opposed to offsetting because they fear companies are opting for cheap and ineffectual swap schemes instead of cutting their CO2 output.

"There are credibility issues and there are cowboys around," said Mr Shopley. "It is probably to be expected for an industry at this stage but we need a set of standards and outside verification so that self-regulation can engender trust and integrity in the market."

But at least it's good that efforts are being made.

CarbonNeutral, one of the biggest offsetting companies in the UK, has already developed its own off setting standards, verified by independent assessors. The growth of the London-based firm underlines the growing interest in climate change and carbon off setting around the City.

"We have doubled our revenues over the last financial year and whereas two years ago we would get one inbound call a week about offsetting, it is now over 100," said Mr Shopley, who is supporting the Climate Group, a non-profit organisation, in its attempts to draw up rules under a "voluntary carbon standard".

This is a good thing, because some companies, well-intentioned in their drive towards carbon neutrality have run into problems.

HSBC, the global banking group which promised to go carbon neutral in 2005, says its experiences of trying to offset carbon led it to draw some harsh conclusions.

"The police, the fraud squad and trading standards need to be looking at this," Francis Sullivan, an environment adviser to the bank, told the FT.

SustainaBee says: I've never believed that much in carbon offsetting. Maybe once doubts can be cast aside, I will put a little money there. Until then, why not take that extra money that you would have spent on buying carbon credits and use it for implementing measures that can reduce your carbon emissions? E.g. change all your light bulbs to energy-efficient ones (save up to 80% of electricity!), switch your water tap with a more water-saving one (save up to 40% of water per tap!), save up the money for a flat-screen TV or a flat-screen monitor, or maybe get an iMac, a very energy-efficient PC.