In fact, carbon credits used for offsetting purposes have become central components of the climate strategies of many major corporations around the world and enables them to claim to be working towards becoming “net zero” even as they continue to pollute with impunity.
Since it is impossible to truly offset emissions and because of the way in which offsetting is used to greenwash images, Carbon Market Watch opposes the use of carbon credits to compensate for emissions. Instead, companies should make every effort to reduce their emissions in line with what the science says is required to keep global temperature rises within the relatively safe 1.5℃ limit. When they purchase carbon credits, they should only claim that they contributed to climate action and must not use them to claim they are counterbalancing their emissions.
When it comes to climate claims and corporate climate responsibility, Carbon Market Watch focuses on:
“We urgently need companies to stop greenwashing or making vague claims that they are carbon or climate neutral and to step up and take real and sustained climate action.”
Lindsay Otis
Policy expert on global carbon markets
“We urgently need companies to stop greenwashing or making vague claims that they are carbon or climate neutral and to step up and take real and sustained climate action.”
Lindsay Otis
Policy expert on global carbon markets
Corporations prioritise deep, rapid and sustained emissions reductions
Companies stop offsetting emissions and making unsubstantiated claims, such as “carbon neutral”
Buyers find more sustainable uses for carbon credits, such as the ‘contribution model’ in which they simply state that they contributed to climate action via funding a certain type of project(s)
Governments must combat greenwashing through effective regulation and legislation, such as banning spurious and exaggerated climate claims
In new guidance, the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) is promoting the use of carbon credits to camouflage the fact that companies grappling with their indirect (scope 3) emissions
A revision of the Science Based Targets initiative’s CNZS v2.0 corporate net-zero standard reveals a welcome push towards greater accountability, despite some shortcomings.
This joint statement outlines a robust alternative to the “carbon neutrality” model of corporate climate finance.
The banking sector’s anticipated upswing in investment in the voluntary carbon market has failed to materialise, new research reveals.
As this year’s edition of the CCRM reveals, the median absolute emissions reduction commitments by 2030 for the 51 companies assessed was as little as 30% (and 33% at the most optimistic), whereas the world needs a 43% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and 48% in carbon emissions below 2019 levels to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C.
Corporations assessed in the 2023 Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor that have a 2030 target commit to cutting only 15% of their real emissions by 2030.
jonathan.crook[at]carbonmarketwatch.org
benja.faecks[at]carbonmarketwatch.org
lindsay.otis[at]carbonmarketwatch.org
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