Retail vs. Wholesale Carbon Offset Transactions

When it comes to carbon offsetting, online resellers that cater to the retail market like South Pole and Atmosfair command a lot of attention. But just how big is the retail carbon offsetting market?

Using the AlliedOffsets database, we wanted to get a better understanding of how the retail market compares with the wholesale market in terms of the number of transactions and credits retired.

How does one define retail vs. wholesale? In the below analysis, we broke the data down in two ways: <17 tCO2e transactions, and <50 tCO2e transactions. The average carbon footprint for a US citizen is 16 tCO2e per year, so the above values capture individuals who are offsetting their footprint, as well as those who may be offsetting for their family members.

The above shows that while 49% of voluntary carbon retirements are for fewer than 17 tCO2e, they account for one fifth of a percent of the overall credits retired. Even when looking at retirements that are <50 tCO2e, the transactions cover only half of one percent of all credits retired.

Out of curiosity, we also ran the numbers on what percentage of the market is covered by retirements of 1 tCO2e — turns out that 12% of all retirements are for a single ton of carbon; however, they take up just 0.00135% of the overall credits retired!

This suggests that firms looking to target only the retail market have to fight hard for a minuscule percentage of the market. For more data on voluntary carbon markets, check out our Premium Dashboard here!