Carbon markets have mostly been in the news with the context of criticism and backlash. Companies are accused of greenwashing as they are seen to be outsourcing their responsibilities to tackle the climate crisis by continuing business as usual by funding offsetting projects and claiming carbon neutrality. There have been significant problems reported with offsetting schemes over the years, primarily relating to additionality, transparency and permanence. For example, how long will the carbon that is captured by planting trees disappear for, before it may go back into the atmosphere? Would any of these projects have happened regardless and are companies just reaping the benefits without contributing additional value?
The key question is: is this misuse inherent to offsetting itself, or can offsetting still be an opportunity if done right, backed by robust cutting-edge research? To answer this, we have recently created a Carbon Offsetting Working Group at King’s with representatives in the form of professional services, students and academic experts, from philosophy and ecology to engineering and statistics.
First of all, what is carbon offsetting? It can be defined as “Emissions reduction or removal resulting from an action outside an organisation’s boundaries used to counterbalance the organisation’s residual emissions”. Offsetting is usually coordinated via the voluntary carbon market, which is a trading system where carbon credits can be purchased from entities that remove or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Offsetting claims are only valid under a rigorous set of conditions, including that the reductions or removals involved are additional, not over-estimated and exclusively claimed.
The key word in the above definition is “residual”. Offsetting should never be used to ignore your own emissions and simply ‘buy’ carbon credits, as they are cheaper and easier than making the necessary transformational changes internally. All the principles and guidance out there are clear: minimising your own emissions should be an absolute and undebatable priority. Only once you get to your residual and unavoidable emissions, should offsetting be then considered.
It is important to keep in mind that we will not be able to decarbonise the full portfolio of our emissions (both direct and indirect) until all sectors have decarbonised. For example, aviation is considered one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise, and even if business travel at King’s is reduced and skewed in favour of low-carbon alternatives, we will continue to have emissions related to business travel until the aviation sector has fully transformed.
To demonstrate that we are serious about reducing our emissions before offsetting, King’s has been reviewing its travel policy in collaboration with the community, which is due to be published in summer 2024. The new policy will have sustainability at its core, while aiming to improve diversity and equity in academia and continuing our internal ambitions.
Another key consideration in this debate is reflecting on the different types of offsetting, which take a variety of forms. Carbon offsetting can be split into two main categories: carbon avoidance and carbon removals.
Offsets relying on carbon avoidance mean that funds go towards initiatives that avoid the emission of carbon and include projects such as providing renewable energy, funding clean cooking stoves or protecting existing forests which fix carbon.
Carbon removals, as the name suggests, remove existing carbon from the atmosphere and can be nature-based (such as reforestation and restoring biodiversity) or technology-based (such as direct air capture and carbon capture and storage). Additionally, there are a range of further definitions that are often used in the context of offsetting, such as internal carbon pricing, beyond value chain mitigation and carbon insetting. Under internal carbon pricing, organisations assign an internal price to carbon use – either as a proxy or an actual fee – and factor this into investment decisions. Carbon insetting can be defined as interventions along a company’s value chain to reduce emissions. Beyond Value Chain Mitigation still involves purchasing carbon credits, but without then claiming to have compensated our own climate impact.
It is a complex area, and that is why I strongly believe we must push for more robust research in this field. As a university or knowledge institution, this is the one of the main things we can contribute towards. We hope that our Carbon Offsetting Working Group will further galvanise our contributions to this critical debate. The Group will be exploring the full range of options related to offsetting, which will culminate in a multidimensional strategy and university-wide policy on carbon offsetting by Spring 2025.
We will also be organising a couple of debates in Spring/Summer 2024 to engage our wider community in these important discussions. If you are a student or staff member at King’s and have expertise or particular interest in this topic, please reach out to jone.de_roode_jauregi@kcl.ac.uk
With more than 140 countries and over 13,000 Race to Zero members having made net zero pledges, it is critical that we get the journey right.