Carbon Offsetting

Carbon offsetting is a mechanism that allows organisations and individuals to neutralise their unavoidable climate change impact by purchasing carbon credits.

Carbon credits are created by new infrastructure based projects that save greenhouse gas emissions and displace common-place polluting alternatives. Examples of these include renewable energy power plants, energy efficiency installations and methane capture projects.

Each tonne of greenhouse gas that is saved by these projects can registered through 3rd party accreditation agencies and then sold as a carbon credit. A company can then purchase the carbon credits from these infrastructure projects to offset their own unavoidable emissions impact. This can allow the footprint of the company to be zero or ‘carbon neutral’.

The revenue received for the sale of a carbon credit helps finance the infrastructure project and drives further investment into clean technologies. Therefore buying carbon credits not only cancels out a company’s emissions, but it helps transform society to become more green and efficient.

While all carbon credits represent the sequestration of one tonne of CO2-e, different projects, even with the same accreditation, can have different outcomes for the environment. Therefore it is crucial that you carefully evaluate your options before you decide how to offset your emissions.Read our Carbon Credit Purchasing Guide here to assist you before making any purchasing decisions.

Read about our carbon credit evaluation criteria

Read more about our current carbon credit project