A leading corporate sustainability watchdog warns that carbon offset credits are a risky tactic to tackle climate change. The nonprofit had faced pressure To soften its stance on carbon credits, which many companies promote as a way to deal with pollution. This week's findings appear to refute that effort.
Many brands have tried to sell themselves as environmentally friendly, but consumers struggle to know whether those companies are actually having a positive impact. That's where the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) comes in, which develops standards for climate targets and Evaluating companies based on those guidelines.
The SBTi is in the process of updating its standards, which could have a major impact on the thousands of companies that have sought to legitimize their sustainability claims through the organization. report This week, the World Bank has summarised the evidence it has gathered on the usefulness of carbon credits purchased by companies to combat climate change. Many of them are simply “ineffective”, the report says.
“There could be clear risks in corporate use of carbon credits for offsetting purposes.”
“There could be clear risks to corporate use of carbon credits for offsetting purposes,” the report says. saysIn fact, these credits could hinder efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution — exactly the opposite of what corporate climate commitments are supposed to achieve.
Carbon credits are supposed to represent tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution, either avoided or reduced and stored. They can be tied to renewable energy projects or other initiatives to prevent deforestation or plant trees that absorb and store oxygen, for example. Companies buy these credits to try to offset the impact their own pollution has on the climate.
That allows companies to claim to be carbon neutral, even if they still emit greenhouse gases. But carbon accounting often doesn't add up in the real world. Carbon credits have become so popular and cheap that the market has been flooded with them. Bad credits of poorly designed projects that often overestimate The amount of carbon dioxide they prevent or trap. It's difficult to measure how much carbon a forest retains, for example, and its trees must remain standing for 100 years or more to prevent that CO2 from returning to the atmosphere.
The SBTi report is based on more than 100 unique pieces of evidence that the organization reviewed and assessed for relevance and potential bias. That includes research articles, case studies, regulatory analyses, and other types of evidence that required Last year. The group says its findings apply only to the evidence it reviewed, but the report is in line with a growing number of Research and academic investigation which cast doubt on carbon credits.
The results of the SBTi review are even more important considering that the organization reportedly faced a riot This year, the SBTi has changed its stance on carbon credits. In the past, has not allowed companies to replace emissions reductions with carbon offset credits. There was an uproar when the group's board of directors published a statement in April, suggesting that the SBTi could suddenly start allowing a company to offset pollution arising from its supply chain and the use of its products.
The commotion that followed included the staff. reportedly trying to remove SBTi's board members and CEO. At least one of SBTi's scientific advisers give up In protest, its chief executive resigned in July. “for personal reasons.” The SBTi clarified the board’s April statement by saying it had not yet made any changes to carbon credits and would need to follow the organization’s protocol for updating standards.
“Today's announcement marks a key step in the review process for the Net-Zero Corporate Standard,” interim CEO Sue Jenny Ehr said in a statement on July 30. statementThe SBTi says it will have a draft of its revised guidelines ready for public comment by the end of the year.
Environmental groups say the analysis the SBTi published this week shows why carbon credits should play no role in companies’ sustainability plans going forward. “The SBTi should retract its plan to allow offsets in corporate climate targets, or it risks becoming a tool for precisely this kind of whitewashing,” Jill McArdle, international corporate campaigner for Beyond Fossil Fuels, said in a press release.
