Carbon offsetting is the practice of capturing, avoiding or reducing CO2 emissions ‘over there’, to compensate for emissions ‘over here’.

There are many types of carbon offset projects that capture/avoid/reduce CO2, like REDD projects (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) that preserve threatened forests. And renewable energy schemes that generate electricity using natural energy sources, like solar, wind and geothermal.

The carbon capture/avoidance/reduction impact of each scheme is measured and verified by a recognised carbon standard (like the Verified Carbon Standard https://verra.org/project/vcs-program/>. And the resulting carbon credits can then be sold to organisations or individuals wishing to offset their own emissions.

One carbon credit is a verified token of one tonne of C02 captured, avoided or reduced. So one carbon credit can be used to neutralize or offset one tonne of CO2 emissions.

Carbon credits are tradable commodities, which means they can be acquired by businesses seeking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions, or by individuals seeking to offset their own carbon footprint.

Carbon credits can also be traded as financial instruments. So in theory, a single carbon credit can be traded multiple times, but it can be used to offset emissions only once – via its retirement.

Retiring a carbon credit transforms it from a tradeable commodity into a fixed environmental benefit. No matter how many times a carbon credit is traded, retirement ensures that a credit is ‘used’ only once. And ‘ownership’ of that benefit becomes fixed in perpetuity via the verifying carbon registry.

Short answer – the terms carbon footprint, carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions are generally interchangeable. They usually mean the same thing.

Long answer – Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases absorb heat energy and act like a thermal blanket wrapped around the earth. Which is a good thing, because without any atmospheric CO2, ground temperatures would drop by 33°C (https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/19/what-is-the-greenhouse-effect/). The problem is that rising CO2 concentrations from burning fossil fuels are now driving climate change. But carbon isn’t the only culprit, because it’s not the only greenhouse gas.

Other major contributors to climate change include methane (from agriculture and fossil fuel production), nitrous oxide (agriculture, industry, wastewater treatment), and fluorinated gases, like chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (industry).

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases

All these gases have a different “Global Warming Potential” (GWP). So to measure the cumulative effect of all GHG emissions, the potency of each is indexed against CO2, which has a GWP of 1. Methane (CH4) has a GWP of around 25, while Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF6) has a GWP of 22,800.

To create a practical methodology for measuring the total effect of all greenhouse gas emissions, a unifying metric has been adopted: tCO2e – ‘tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent’. To balance one tonne of CO2, emissions, you’d need one tonne of carbon offset. To offset one tonne of CH4 emissions, you’d need 25 tonnes of carbon offset.

So when we retire 12.7 tonnes of carbon credits to greenify one person’s carbon footprint (for Planet Positive People or Greenify-a-Hire), we’re actually offsetting all their greenhouse gas emissions, not just their CO2.

Every tonne of CO2 offset, every tree planted, and every kilogramme of plastic waste recovered & repurposed is registered the Greenify Impact Ledger. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/116h8YQVRao589zrBE4i13BLZ4a4FhCf2v-olFvSoLVU/edit?usp=sharing.

Each impact entry is accompanied by a certificate of procurement, or for carbon credits, certificate of retirement. Where available, impact entries include project details.

All carbon credits procured by Greenify are certified by one of the leading carbon registries, such as Verra https://verra.org/ or CDM https://cdm.unfccc.int/Registry/index.html

Project validation and verification protocols deployed by these organisations are exhaustive and highly robust.

Verra validation and verification protocols are available here: https://verra.org/project/vcs-program/validation-verification/

CDM protocols are available here: https://cdm.unfccc.int/Reference/Standards/index.html

Planting reports produced by Greenify’s primary tree planting partner (Plant for the Planet) are available here https://a.plant-for-the-planet.org/de/yucatan-reports/

Plant for the Planet’s Transparency Report is available here (in German):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_kPoN8N9ioPQI7n4Jr6PjuEOwkKzwUGg/view?usp=sharing

Greenify’s plastic waste recovery partner is rePurpose Global (rPG) https://www.business.repurpose.global, who operate a variety of plastic recovery projects around the globe.

All plastic recovery impacts are verified by certification issued by rPG. rPG’s verification protocol is available here. https://airtable.com/shr7Vz7OIb397lX8O/tblVOv6SFhhaKcOPL/viwTVyDe2TjmgRphf/recgoSHzAbkmOfOnl

Deforestation accelerates climate change in three distinct ways. Firstly, trees are our most potent weapon for capturing and safely storing ongoing CO2 emissions. And every tree lost reduces the natural world’s capacity to sequester carbon and help maintain a stable climate.

Secondly, when forests are felled and burned to clear land, the carbon that’s locked up in the countless trunks and branches is instantly released into the atmosphere. The carbon stored in the trees’ root systems is released over a longer period as they rot, and the soil degrades.

Thirdly, deforestation frequently occurs to make space for urban development or agriculture, two major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. So the land is transformed from a carbon sink, into a carbon source.

Greenify’s primary tree planting partner is Plant-for-the-Planet (PftP), a European not-for-profit environmental organisation. And we’re delighted to support their world-leading reforestation project in the Yucatan, Mexico.

In 2015, PftP took responsibility for 22,500 hectares of degraded environments across the Yucatan region, and with a local team of more than one hundred people, they’ve now planted over three million trees. Planting takes place both in open grasslands that have been entirely deforested, and in degraded forests that have been plundered for their large, high-value trees. Crucially, all new planting is of indigenous species such as Bread Walnut, American Mahogany and the 40m-tall Manilkara Zapota or Chewing Gum Tree.

There are many locations around the globe that are in desperate need of reforesting, yet the Yucatan is a priority because local conditions enable trees to grow very quickly, capturing and binding carbon far faster than new planting in temperate regions – which makes the PftP Yucatan project a truly high-impact climate solution.

Check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG1558vDIns to learn more about PftP’s Yucatán reforestation project.

The reforestation of the UK would of course be a massive boost to the natural world. But the harsh reality is that there is intense demand for land in this country – for agriculture, housing, industry & commerce, minerals and landfill, recreation and transport infrastructure. So new tree planting generally has to take place on land that’s currently used for something else. And that ‘something else’ is usually agriculture.

A spike in demand for tree planting and carbon credits has driven up the price of these nature-based commodities – to the point where some farmers and landowners are now switching from growing crops to growing trees. Sounds good, right? Well, yes and no.

As a net importer of food, the UK is reliant on overseas production. Which means that for every acre of UK arable land that’s converted into forest, there’s likely an acre of virgin forest in a developing nation that’s cut down and converted into arable land. And it’s not even a zero-sum gain, because the food grown overseas has to be transported to the UK via sea or air, which increases the carbon footprint of the food on our shelves.

It's a highly complex issue. And we’re not saying that UK planting is a bad thing – far from it. Just that the costs and benefits of every action have to be carefully considered. And right now, we believe the environmental benefits of the tree planting projects we’re currently invested in, far outweigh domestic planting projects.

Deforestation is driven primarily by demand for four products: beef, soy, timber and palm oil. Palm oil gets a lot of bad press, but it’s actually a highly efficient and super-productive crop, requiring far less land per calorie produced than other vegetable oil crops. And palm oil is almost impossible to avoid, because it’s present in nearly 50% of the packaged products we see on supermarket shelves. From pizza, chocolate, ice cream and cookies, through to shampoo, soap, detergents, and even lipstick, palm all is in countless day-to-day products.

Yet even if you avoid all of these products, plus beef, soy-fed meat and timber, it’s still virtually impossible to eliminate your deforestation footprint entirely – because domestic renewable energy production can actually contribute to deforestation. Here’s how…

In 2020, renewable energy sources contributed 47.8% of the UK’s total electricity generation capacity. (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1032260/UK_Energy_in_Brief_2021.pdf)

And solar contributed 4.8% of that. Not a massive contribution, yet one that’s growing. And here’s the catch – new solar facilities are often constructed on arable farmland, as rising energy prices encourage landowners to switch from growing crops to generating green electricity. But when this happens, the food crops previously grown on the land now have to be grown elsewhere, usually overseas. And this puts further pressure on space, potentially driving increased deforestation to grow the crops that used to be grown on the land given over to solar. It's a complex issue with no straightforward answer, but the point is that no matter how green your lifestyle, it’s virtually impossible to avoid a deforestation footprint.

The earth’s greatest carbon sink is not our forests, but our seas. Yet a flood of marine plastic pollution is damaging the ocean’s ability to absorb and safely store CO2. When ocean plastic breaks down, trillions upon trillions of nanoplastic particles are released into the marine ecosystem, where they’re consumed by microscopic algae. Ingested nanoplastic suppresses the growth rates of these tiny organisms, and impacts their ability to photosynthesise – to convert CO2 into oxygen.

As David Attenborough succinctly put it, “Individually, algae are tiny, but together they produce three quarters of all the oxygen in our atmosphere.”

Plastic pollution now threatens this life-sustaining process. And although microscopic plastic particles aren’t as newsworthy as a turtle eating a plastic bag, if left unchecked, they will accelerate global heating and hasten climate collapse.

So environmental offsetting is about more than just reducing carbon emissions, protecting forests and planting trees – we also have to stem flood of plastic waste before it wreaks catastrophic damage on our planet’s life support systems.

Greenify works with rePurpose Global to support their many plastic recovery projects around the globe – projects like Laut Yang Tenang in Bekasi, Indonesia.

The once-pristine coast of West Java has been overwhelmed in recent years by a flood of plastic waste – threatening wildlife and polluting the marine ecosystem. The bulk of this waste is multi-layered plastic (MLP), which has little commercial value and is almost impossible to recycle. So it’s left where it lies, contaminating waterways and washing out to sea, where it breaks down into countless nanoplastic particles.

Project Laut Yang Tenang is pushing back against this plastic tidal wave by funding a network of waste banks, collection services and informal waste workers who intercept MLP before it reaches the ocean. Once recovered, the waste plastic is sent for co-processing in industrial kilns, which means the MLP becomes an alternative fuel source, reducing the need to burn wood or fossil fuels, and leaving zero residue.

Check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sdIoyIvnj0 to learn more about rePurpose Global’s amazing work. And explore the Greenify Asset Ledger https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/116h8YQVRao589zrBE4i13BLZ4a4FhCf2v-olFvSoLVU/edit?usp=sharing for details of all the plastic recovery projects we support.