Carbon offsets for dummies (like me) at Things That Make You Go Green

Happy New Year, everyone. As one of my new years resolutions I decided that I am going to actually offset my carbon emissions - something that has taken me an inexcusably long time to do. But I have an excuse! Unfortunately, the world of carbon offsets is not simple and not all carbon offsets are created equal. Thus, I’ve spent some quality time over the past few days doing a bit of research. Here’s what I’ve found.

1. Additionality is key: Buying good offsets is important, and there are many important characteristics of a good offset, but one of the most important is additionality. Put simply, additionality means that the carbon that you paid to offset would NOT have been offset anyway, had you not bought the offset - it happened in addition. Makes sense right? If it was going to happen anyway, did you offset anything?

This one is really tricky, because how do you prove that it would or would not have happened? For instance, my two key sources, the Tufts Climate Initiative and Clean Air Cool Planet state that Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) are very difficult to prove additionality for. For instance, Tufts says, “Voluntary market RECs generally do not have to adhere to the same strict additionality standards as carbon offsets (VERs.)…. Because of the economic benefits of many renewable energy projects, such as wind farms, it is especially difficult to determine additionality with RECs.” However, many Carbon Offset companies sell RECs. For instance, I took a glance at Terrapass’ website, and a third of their offsets are based on RECs. Unfortunately, there’s basically nothing on their site about additionality. Not good.

2. Know thy Verifier - Additionality is just one of many factors that make it difficult for the layperson to judge the quality of a carbon offset. Other key factors are:

the type of offset (projects to plant trees take credit today for offsets that happen 50 years in the future)
measuring the impact of the projects
ensuring that offsets aren’t credited multiple times, etc.
overhead costs
and so on… t’s a long list, people!

Because of the complexity and subjectivity in this area, the second key thing to make sure who has verified your carbon offset supplier, and understand how THEY work.Some, such as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Gold Standard and Voluntary Gold Standard
have high standards for such things like additionality, but have high costs, and are only used for big projects. Others, such as Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) or Green-e have simpler methodologies but may neglect things like additionality.

To see how the diffierent verifiers stack up, take a look at the Tufts Climate Initiative’s write up here.

Recommendations:

Based on these factors, the following companies are recommended by either Tufts Climate Initiative or Clean Air Cool Planet (many of which seemingly don’t like captial letters):

Clearly this is a topic that is neither clear cut nor easy. Based on my research, I’m personally going with atmosfair or Myclimate, but would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Update: I just paid 386,00 EUR to offset 19020 kg CO2-eq. greenhouse gas emissions! Dang, that was kind of painful!!!