What Is Carbon Offsetting?
Sustainability is a growing priority for businesses of all shapes and sizes as the realities of climate change make themselves felt.
Not only does being eco-friendly and adopting green practices make your organisation more resilient in the face of climate-related disruption, it also makes you a more appealing choice for consumers, who are now increasingly keen to spend their money with brands that have environmentalism as one of their core values.
Reducing your carbon footprint as a business brings with it all sorts of benefits, everything from enhancing your reputation, reducing utility bills and other costs, attracting investment from shareholders looking for brands with a long-term sustainable strategy and making you more competitive in your sector.
Strategies for working towards net zero include transitioning to renewable energy, choosing sustainable web hosting, focusing on the concept of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, only working with sustainable suppliers and investing in green office equipment.
However, you may also want to look into the benefits of carbon offsetting to see if this can help you reduce your environmental impact even further.
What is carbon offsetting?
If you’ve already explored all your options to reduce your carbon emissions or avoid them altogether, then it could be worth looking into carbon offsetting to further enhance your green credentials.
Carbon offsetting involves compensating for the emissions that your business produces by looking elsewhere for opportunities to reduce the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.
Projects include the likes of reforestation, with new trees planted to absorb greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere, investing in renewable energy projects like solar panels and wind farms, waste management strategies like composting, recycling and biogas, and methane capture.
Is carbon offsetting greenwashing?
Carbon offsetting can be a controversial topic and companies run the risk of being accused of greenwashing if they focus on this area without publicly reporting their emission levels and implementing other strategies to reduce their carbon footprints, as well.
When done properly, carbon offset projects can reduce carbon emissions and/or increase carbon storage, but they’re short-term solutions to a long-term problem and do nothing to address primary emission sources, such as fossil fuel consumption.
International organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have also voiced concerns about such projects, suggesting that they could potentially encourage a culture of climate pollution, with arguments made that there is no need for legislation to curb emissions because of carbon offsetting.
In this scenario, pollution could continue while offsets are purchased, without businesses, governments and individuals having to make changes to behaviours. Furthermore, there are concerns about the environmental credibility of carbon credits and how such projects contribute to sustainable development.
How can carbon offset consultants help?
Reducing carbon emissions is a complex and challenging task, but the Beyond Procurement team is here to guide you through the process as you transition towards net zero.
As part of our roadmap, we’ll collect all your data and measure your carbon footprint so you have a baseline emissions report upon which to improve. If you’d like to find out more, get in touch with us today.