We know that carbon offsets have a bit of a PR problem.
A lot of people think of carbon offsets as just some fancy financial greenwashing trick that absolves a business of climate guilt without them actually cutting their emissions.
But there are SO many legitimate projects out there, run by good people who really need your help to make the big difference they want to make in the fight against global warming. But, if you want to support a carbon offsetting project, how can you know it’s one of the good ones? It takes a lot of research, and a legitimate carbon offset needs to be
1. Permanent (the carbon is stopped or sequestered indefinitely)
2. Additional (the offset wouldn't have happened without your funding)
3. Exclusive (the offset is only paid for once, so there aren’t 2 people paying to plant the same tree)
4. Comprehensive (the offset actually stops or removes emissions and doesn’t just shift CO₂ emissions somewhere else)
And that can be very hard to determine on your own, when all your information about an organization is coming from the organization itself.
And now, with the carbon offset market growing rapidly after COP26, the market is full of opportunists looking to take your money, give you a bogus certificate, and pocket your cash while claiming it helped them not emit COâ‚‚.
This is a real shame, because it makes a lot of people very wary of the carbon offset market. Which makes sense, because people who pay for offsets are either individuals who really care about global warming or businesses making claims about their green practices, and if you money does nothing but buy you a certificate, then it’s just greenwashing. And no one likes greenwashing.
But there are many high-quality carbon offset projects out there that truly make a difference. That’s why The Carbon Offset Company has done the research for you. We’ve put in the work to gather a portfolio of fantastic projects that we fund knowing 100% that our contributions are making a huge impact.
We have partners that pay locals to replant mangrove forests in Madagascar and Mozambique, which protect the local communities from food shortages, storms, and coastal erosion, while providing enduring economic benefits. There are also offsets that pay poor, rural landowners to plant trees on their property, gradually reforesting the land. We fund agroforestry projects in Senegal, teaching organic, permaculture practices to rural farmers. We even fund projects right here in the USA, reforesting California, Oregon, and Florida. We absolutely love our tree planting partners!
A project type that we DO NOT like most are AUD projects. This stands for Avoided Unplanned Deforestation. Break that down for a minute. They are avoiding to cut down a forest that has no plans to be cut down!? These projects are wrapped up and put into the market just like others and are offered for pennies on the dollar. This allows companies to brand as "carbon neutral" for virtually no budget when in reality NOTHING is happening. They are the worst of the worst but there are other projects out there not much better. As always, though, the higher the quality, the higher the price and the rarer it is. Low-quality projects that don’t meet all the criteria, or don’t provide many co-benefits to the local communities and environment, are usually a little cheaper and there are a LOT more of them. Which is why many wonderful programs continue to go underfunded, because so much potential revenue is siphoned off by low-quality offset programs. We want to help you navigate you to actually make a difference. After all, that's what we are here to actually do.
Regulations are coming to the market, which will hopefully cut down on opportunism and strengthen the markets by increasing consumer confidence in their legitimacy. But, until then, we here at The Carbon Offset Company know that the Carbon Offset market can be a bit shady, which is why we are committed to transparency. We want you to not just trust, but KNOW, that your money is going to fund carbon removal and reforestation. We want to take the guesswork out of buying carbon offsets, so you can focus on your business and your life. That’s why we choose to fund tree planting projects, because they are so cost effective and efficient and provide so many co-benefits for the local communities and environment. These projects don’t always produce carbon credits, but when compared to the rest of the opaque, bloated, and unregulated carbon market, it’s an easy choice.
What can we do to make you feel more certain that your contributions are making a difference?