Carbon Offset: An Asset or Liability?
What is Carbon Offset?
Let’s take a simple example, suppose there is a capital-intensive manufacturing facility, which emits 5000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Now, it has two ways to help reduce its carbon emissions. The first could be switching to alternate sources of energy to manufacture, or offset its emissions.
In simpler words, offset in this case could mean, planting trees so that they can absorb 5000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Blue and Green Washing
Greenwashing is a term used for advertising to deceive stakeholders into believing that a particular product is environmentally friendly or sustainable. It is also known as ‘Green Sheen’. In today’s world of cut-throat competition, organizations use greenwashing to elevate their public perception in the greed to expand, and to meet high consumer demand for environmentally-friendly goods. There have been several multi-national organizations that have been accused of greenwashing like McDonald’s and Volkswagen.
The same principles hold true for bluewashing, which is like greenwashing but focused more on social and economic responsibility rather than the environment.
The term bluewashing was first used to refer to companies who signed the United Nations Global Compact and its principles but did not make any actual policy reforms. Referring to the color of the United Nations flag, bluewashing came to mean that some participating companies were using the Global Compact to improve the public perception of their values, social programs, and governance practices without introducing any real changes or reforms.
Carbon offset: turning a blind eye to the climate emergency
A Carbon Offset is an alleged solution to compensate for an individual or organization’s carbon emissions. Each credit represents 1 tonne of carbon dioxide. In a recent survey, Bloomberg published in one of their articles that popular multinational corporations are giving out advertisements of carbon neutrality and offsetting their carbon footprint in order to maintain their customer base.
There are organizations such as YepYou which help you offset your breath, your pets, pigs, and cats as if carbon offset is the new black.
Multinational Companies such as Disney, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. through an organization Nature Conservancy, paid several million dollars to “conserve” forests in Bethlehem and eastern Pennsylvania so as to “offset” their carbon footprint but the land was never threatened, revelations have been made suggesting that those forests were a part of well-preserved sanctuaries. On the other hand, these multinationals continue to pollute the environment, burn oil, and consume huge amounts of electricity under the garb of “carbon offsets”. The Nature Conservancy takes a cut in deals like these and defends deals. The easements being paid for with carbon money are protecting some of the safest trees outside of a national park.
Ryanair, a low-cost airline made their carbon offsetting claims clearer after an investigation by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) warned that flying remains “highly polluting.” They were asking their passengers to help them offset their air travel with just $2 extra, misleading them.
Swedish Energy Agency recently stopped funding the carbon offset project in Uganda as it caused discomfort, environmental degradation, and loss of livelihood for local villagers. After several years of complaint, they turned a blind eye to the challenges faced by the local villagers. The local villagers are victims of “green fraud” and “Carbon Colonialism”.
“Land grabbing from Ugandan villagers to set up non-native pine plantations is a false climate solution, designed to allow polluters in Northern countries to continue with business as usual,” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute.
To avert the most dangerous effects of a rapidly warming planet, leading scientific bodies to warn that global emissions must be cut by half in the next decade. Thousands of the world’s biggest companies have vowed to do their part, but a lot of that corporate emissions-cutting is accomplished through buying offsets. When the credits represent no actual carbon reduction, it’s a setback the planet can’t afford.
Carbon Offset Registries
Carbon offset registries develop standardized protocols for project registration (to issue carbon credits), keep track of available credits in the marketplace, and make sure that the environmental benefits associated with individual credits aren’t being allocated to multiple entities. Carbon offset registries have established standards, documentation, third-party verification requirements, and monitoring protocols for projects to ensure that any listed credit on their marketplace has been fully verified to ensure they meet strict requirements. Registries act as a third party between project developers and buyers to ensure that the offsets sold deliver the promised environmental impact in a transparent and traceable way.
Some trustworthy carbon registries could be American Carbon Registry, Climate Action Reserve, Gold Standard Impact Registry, and Verified Carbon Standard.
Conclusion
Nature has always supported man to evolve and is the source of its survival. But man, with recent developments and success in different fields, believes it can overpower nature — a misconception. Today, with rapid urbanization and industrialization, the planet’s temperature is increasing at an alarming rate and this is the right and only time to make this okay. It’s high time, humans realize that if they keep putting profits over life, there will be a time when only nature will pervade.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-nature-conservancy-carbon-offsets-trees/#xj4y7vzkg
https://skyddaskogen.se/swedish-energy-agency-stops-climate-compensating-in-uganda/?lang=en
