Companies such as Hello Fresh, Nespresso and Leon are amongst the many focusing their attention on carbon offsetting. This is a process in which companies can invest in environmental projects around the world to reduce their overall CO2 emissions. By calculating total CO2 emissions produced by your company you can offset the same amount, to become carbon neutral or even carbon negative. This approach to reducing net carbon emissions covered 53.9 million more tonnes of CO2e in just over 10 years. But is offsetting a credible option, contributing towards Net Zero targets or is it a greenwashed approach?
The main ways of offsetting carbon are; planting trees and funding restoration projects, investing in renewable energy and purchasing VER (verified emission reduction) credits. These methods, along with many other ways to offset, have positive and negative connotations. Offsetting has created a lot of controversy, especially with the current push towards Net Zero 2050. On the positive side, it can be assessed that these methods have contributed towards slowing down global warming, providing low-carbon and carbon sequestration methods. It has also created a push towards investment in environmental projects that may have lacked secure funding on their own. Furthermore, carbon offsetting has provided an opportunity to companies who are unable to or would struggle to lower their emissions further, to reduce their carbon footprint e.g. airlines.
Offsetting, however, has also received some opposing views. Some experts believe that offsetting is a distraction to the internal changes that need to be addressed within companies. And, instead of making changes to emissions, companies are focusing more on mitigating their carbon debts by investing in external environmental projects. Moreover, it has been found that companies are financing non-verified carbon credits and investing in projects that may not provide long-term solutions (such as financing planting trees in a forest to later find that it has been logged). Some methods are also hard to measure exactly how much CO2e is being removed from the atmosphere, especially if based on estimates of the future of the project.
As a business, it is important to focus on a sustained goal to reduce scope 1,2 and 3 emissions (which you can read about here) as well as taking carbon offsetting into consideration. Carbon offsetting shouldn’t be a solution to use instead of assessing internal improvement but can be a great way to reduce your companies carbon footprint further, when done correctly. Investing in legitimate, long-term projects and consistently assessing their progress can be an effective way of reducing the net emissions produced by your company. It can also create positive press for your company, especially when disclosing the type of offsets that are being used and your science-based emission targets.
At District Eating we can offer methods of carbon offsetting for your company with our low-carbon horticulture projects, why not get in touch to find out more?
