Achieving carbon neutrality is a pressing global goal in the fight against climate change. Carbon offsetting projects play a vital role by helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions and supporting sustainable development in both developed and developing countries.
These projects range from reforestation to renewable energy initiatives, benefiting local communities while driving emission reductions. With growing attention on climate action, offsetting provides an avenue for organisations to mitigate the environmental impact of fossil fuel use and actively reduce emissions.
This article explores seven impactful carbon offset projects, then covers some other common examples, some UK examples, and the difference between voluntary and involuntary markets.
What is Carbon Offsetting?
Carbon offsets provide a mechanism for organisations to address their carbon emissions by investing in projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.
Some examples of carbon offsetting projects include reforestation, renewable energy, and clean cookstoves, delivering environmental benefits while supporting communities. By purchasing carbon credits, organisations can neutralise emissions they cannot yet eliminate and contribute to global sustainability.
A specific example is Shell, one of the biggest contributors. Their offsetting programme encourages their customers to pay 1.8p per litre of their fuel to offset their own emissions through nature-based projects, which has so far offset over 2 million tonnes of CO₂.
While carbon offsetting is not yet mandatory in the UK, it should be in the near future so that companies and those in the private sector cannot continue to contribute to climate change without taking responsibility for mitigating their impact. By making carbon offsetting a standard practice, businesses could help accelerate global efforts to achieve net-zero emissions.
Carbon Credits
Carbon credits refer to a unit of measurement for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Essentially, one carbon credit equates to one tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) or its equivalent in other GHG emissions. Carbon credits represent a decrease in GHG emissions that can be bought and sold on carbon markets.
These credits are an important tool in the fight against climate change. As the world continues to face the consequences of global warming, it is becoming increasingly important for countries and organizations to reduce their carbon footprint. Carbon credits provide a way for organizations to offset their emissions and contribute to a more sustainable future.
Common Carbon Offset Projects
Almost everything emits carbon. The scale of emissions from a business, organization, or even an individual can be immense, and expecting them to completely eliminate this is often infeasible. That’s why carbon offset projects provide such a significant solution.
Carbon offset projects encompass a broad range of initiatives, from clean cookstoves to sequestering carbon in soil. The following examples highlight some of the most impactful examples, each playing a huge role in mitigating global warming.
1. Reforestation
Deforestation is when trees and forests are cut down at a small or large scale for the purposes of agriculture, logging, urbanisation, infrastructure development, resource extraction or other needs. It’s globally recognised as extremely harmful to the environment, as well as displacing indigenous communities and robbing the livelihoods of forest-dependent people.
Forests, woods and trees are some of the strongest carbon dioxide sinks on the planet, and wiping them out causes a huge increase in CO2 levels, enhancing global warming and disruptions in weather patterns. Deforestation obstructs water cycles, leading to further unseen weather changes.
Reforestation directly combats deforestation by planting trees in areas that have been deforested, giving the forest a chance to take over again. This can be government-led or community-driven, and allows for the long-term production of resources while enhancing biodiversity.
The Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact in Brazil aims to restore 15 million hectares of the Atlantic Forest by 2050 and is supported by companies worldwide that voluntarily contribute funds as part of their carbon offsetting initiatives.
2. Renewable Energy
Renewable energy is energy that can be replenished faster than it is consumed, making it sustainable and essentially unlimited, as opposed to natural resources like oil, coal, nuclear and natural gases which are all depleting with no return once they’re gone. Renewables provide energy security by lessening our global dependence on the planet’s limited fossil fuels and ensuring a supply that won’t run out.
Renewable energy initiatives are significant components of carbon offsetting programs, such as CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) Wind Power Projects, which have funded multiple projects in India through credits purchased by companies offsetting their emissions.
3. Energy Efficiency
Energy efficiency carbon offsetting projects improve the energy efficiency of transport systems, industries, buildings, and more. This lowers the overall emissions count, by making swaps that require less energy for a range of energy-intensive tasks. This could be swapping traditional lights for LEDs, fitting insulation for less heating dependence, replacing outdated and draining equipment, or improving industrial processes.
This generates credits by implementing verified energy-saving upgrades, reducing emissions, and certifying the reductions for companies to purchase as offsets.
4. Methane Capture
Methane capture is a common example of a carbon offsetting project, involving the reduction of methane emissions from industrial or natural sources instead of releasing them into the atmosphere.
The process fluctuates to accommodate a range of methane-high industries. Landfill gas capture, for instance, involves the installation of perforated pipes in landfill cells which connect the methane. In oil and gas industries, vented methane can be captured with compressors and re-utilised in production. In wastewater treatment, methane from the decomposition of organic material in sludge digesters gets captured for energy.
Methane capture projects are frequently linked to carbon credits, in both voluntary and compliance carbon markets, and can be certified by standards such as Verra (VCS), American Carbon Registry (ACR), and Gold Standard.
5. Forest Conservation
Forest conservation is one of the most significant carbon offset projects; protecting our natural carbon sinks to preserve our best chance at conquering global warming, while mitigating biodiversity loss. They make up a significant model of carbon credits in both voluntary and compliance markets.
There are many methods to conserve forests, such as REDD+ Projects, which protect vulnerable forests from deforestation with legal frameworks, monitoring, and community engagement. A prolific example is the Katingan Mentaya Project, conserving around 157,000 hectares of Indonesian peatland forest.
Moreover, many conservation agreements exist between communities or landowners that provide financial incentives in return for forest conservation. They can be monitored with satellite monitoring, such as Global Forest Watch, surveyed by drones, or recorded closely within carbon accounting models.
6. Soil Carbon Sequestration
Soil carbon sequestration is a process of capturing CO₂ and storing it in the soil to improve soil health, water retention, and fertility as it increases the soil’s organic matter content.
This is because the increased CO₂ promotes growth and soil microorganism activity, helping nutrient cycling, encouraging plant growth, and breaking down the organic matter. Not only does it restore land damaged by agriculture, but it allows the soil to sequester carbon.
The practice is heavily in line with regenerative farming, involving regenerative methods such as no-till or reduced-till agriculture.
It also includes practices like cover cropping, agroforestry, composting, and managed grazing, all of which enhance biodiversity and ecosystem resilience while maximizing the soil’s ability to store carbon long-term.
7. Clean Cookstoves
In comparison to basic cookers, clean cookstoves are a modern alternative designed specially to burn fuel efficiently and with less pollution. This can be achieved by improved combustion efficiency, thermal retention, fuel alternatives and solar power.
As a result, less CO₂, black carbon, and methane emissions are let off, while the users are drastically less exposed to indoor pollution. Less fuel costs, less time collecting firewood, and less deforestation.
In the UK, standard hobs and oven tops are typically powered by mains gas or electricity, whereas clean cookstoves use alternative fuels such as processed biomass, biogas, ethanol, or solar energy.
This generates carbon credits because clean cookstoves replace inefficient, polluting methods in developing regions, such as three-stone fires in Kenya and charcoal stoves in Haiti.
When companies purchase clean cookstove credits, they offset an amount of emissions, and payment goes to the project developers, funding stove distribution, covering logistics, production, and community training.
A prolific clean cookstove developer is BURN Manufacturing, Africa’s largest cookstove manufacturer, operating in 21 countries.
The Most Effective Carbon Offset Projects
An example of a successful carbon offset project is biochar production. Biochar combines “biological” and “charcoal”. This living charcoal is an organic, sustainable source that offers many benefits to soil health and can sequester huge amounts of carbon.
It dates back over 2,500 years, with recorded uses by indigenous people in the Amazon Basin of South America for healthy soil purposes.
Biochar is incorporated into the soil before planting or during the soil’s preparation, ensuring soils will be fertile, healthy and able to retain high levels of nutrients to support maximum plant health.
Each ton of biochar is able to sequester around 2-3 tons of CO₂, and biochar carbon credits are being sold on platforms like Puro.earth and Carbon Direct at a rough average of $185 per ton of CO₂ removed.
Another strong example is bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), combining bioenergy (BE) production with carbon capture and storage (CCS). Not only does this generate renewable energy, but it also actively removes CO₂, simultaneously addressing climate and energy goals.
This involves collecting biomass such as dedicated energy crops, agricultural residues, or wood, which absorb CO₂ during growth. It is then harvested and converted into bioenergy through burning (and sometimes gasification or fermentation), whereby it can be used to generate electricity or produce biofuels.
BECCS projects can resemble power plants, with combustion chambers or boilers to burn the biomass, carbon capture units in the form of towers or columns to separate exhaust gases and CO₂, plus compression equipment or pipelines for storage.
UK Carbon Offsetting Schemes
The UK and USA governments fund BECCS with climate policies, with organisations like the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) recognising it as a potential tool to limit global warming.
Moreover, the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) focuses on carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the north of England, with plans to permanently store up to 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
Compulsory Vs Voluntary Offsetting Schemes
Involuntary carbon offsetting schemes must be undertaken by companies and individuals when meeting regulatory or governmental requirements. For instance, the EU ETS (EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which some companies have to buy to either cover or offset emissions.
On the other hand, voluntary carbon offsetting schemes are optional, where organisations and companies can decide to offset emissions to meet corporate sustainability targets, such as Verra’s VCS (Verified Carbon Standard).
More Information
https://forestryandland.gov.scot/business-and-services/carbon-offset-projects
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/sep/16/carbon-offset-projects-carbon-emissions
https://www.climatepartner.com/en/knowledge/glossary/carbon-offset-project
https://www.carbonfootprint.com/uk_projects.html
https://www.fsb.org.uk/resources-page/carbon-offsetting-a-guide-for-small-businesses.html
https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/centers/cepp/projects/berkeley-carbon-trading-project/offsets-database