Guest Editor: Ellie La Trobe-Bateman - The future of the Carbon Offset

Posted by: Guest Editor

Currently carbon offsetting is justified by three main factors that have obvious uncertainties around them;

1) Guilt –Individuals or businesses may feel guilty about continuing to pollute. It is an emotion though, and difficult to predict.

2) Taking action on Climate Change - The evidence that offsetting can help combat climate change is reliant on the carbon footprint estimates and project compensation estimates being accurate. Estimates can never be accurate as they are built on a set of assumptions. There are assumptions for the amount of carbon produced as well as for the amount that it has been reduced.

3) A business requirement – part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objectives - this is likely to be short lived. Businesses are fickle; and as quickly as it arose it could be dismissed.

In addition there has been a large amount of off-putting press regarding offsetting projects that have either been having negative impacts to the local community or environments or failing to make their claimed carbon reductions. The ‘Which’ report (1) on carbon offsetting noted the great deal of variation in the market and the confusion present for consumers. This confusion and wariness that currently exists makes the future of carbon offsetting unpredictable.

The Future
Carbon offsetting organisations need to show all that they are credible, and are running worthwhile projects that would otherwise not be able to go ahead (i.e. are additional) and are reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The future of carbon offsetting is not in the development of standards to ensure that a project reduces an exact amount of carbon dioxide. It is impossible to get to that level of accuracy for any project regardless of the verification standard used; there are too many unknowns; too many assumptions have to be made. What is needed is a standard for projects that reduce carbon emissions, by doing more than this, for example by helping communities in other ways that would not receive finance any other way.

Take fuel efficient or renewable energy stove programmes in developing countries as an example of such a community benefiting project. Each stove with help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1 – 3 tonnes per year that they are in use, it will also reduce the household’s income spent on fuel wood, improve the household’s health by reducing smoke and burns incidents, reduce local deforestation, enhance biodiversity, and increase time available to women and children for other activities. This programme helps communities to develop and reduce their dependence / future dependence on fossil fuels. The potential is huge, but the funding is not available to enable such programmes to assist the poorest. Carbon finance could be such a way.

Knowing the exact amount of carbon dioxide reduce by a stove programme is a challenge and dependent on making extrapolations from a sample of the population. It could be suggested that it would be better to measure project effectiveness by simply counting the number of stoves distributed, since this is a directly verifiable measure. It would also be more cost effective, and time efficient. This is not only applicable to stove projects, but many other energy efficient and renewable energy community projects too,

Carbon Offsetting should no longer be seen as a way to enable businesses and individuals to pollute; but should be a way of empowering them to help other communities reduce carbon, and be kept connected to that project that they are funding. There is a future to offsetting, but it may need to take a slight change in direction to retain integrity and to reduce the confusion for everyone.

(1) Source: Which.com, (2008)

Ellie La Trobe-Bateman is the Managing Director of Blue Ventures Carbon Offset (BVCO), a not for profit carbon offset organisation. BVCO is a small organisation that has been in operation since 2007. They have recently launched a ‘sponsor a stove’ campaign; promoting compensating your carbon footprint. Ellie’s background is in Environmental Change and Management – taking the MSC from Oxford University, and has an ongoing involvement in environmental consultancy.

Filed under Guest editor, Climate change, Power & Energy |