Kristen Mertens
Manager, Strategy & Implementation - Americas
Daniel Rossi
Corporate Sustainability Director
Carbon Offsets
Carbon Neutrality
Climate Action
Decarbonization
Corporate Sustainability
April 21, 2021
Around the world, corporations are setting increasingly ambitious carbon reduction targets. Carbon offsets will play a critical role in meeting many targets, particularly in the near-term. Corporations face pressure to craft robust carbon offset strategies, which is driving increasing demand for high-quality carbon offsets and momentum in voluntary carbon markets.
The Key to Meeting Corporate Climate Goals: Measure, Reduce & Offset
Carbon offsets play a central role in bridging the gap to climate goals for corporations and governments alike. Alongside ambitious decarbonization goals to reduce business’ carbon footprint, high-quality carbon offsets can unlock more ambitious near-term action.
Carbon offsets enable emissions reduction, avoidance or removal projects that compensate for emissions occurring elsewhere (e.g., in a corporate supply chain). Carbon offset solutions that are nature-based also channel investment into critical decarbonization levers, including preservation, restoration, and regeneration of nature's carbon removal machines (forests, wetlands, etc.) putting people at the heart of climate solutions for generations to come.
Although sustainability ambition continues its ascent, climate action is often dominated by skepticism in rapidly changing market conditions, where not all carbon offset credits and projects are created equal.
In September 2021, the number of voluntary offsets retired hit a record high at a total of 42.2 million (BNEF). However, the market is still developing and requires due diligence when purchasing credits.
There are best practicesto ensure that carbon offsets do not take the place of a company's internal emissions reductions or decrease the momentum for global climate ambition. In this Corporate Sustainability Spotlight, we will examine the value of carbon offsets, when to activate them, and share our own journey in procuring high-quality carbon offsets to reach carbon neutrality.
Carbon Offsets 101: Definition and Project Types
Carbon Offset Definition
A carbon offset, also called "carbon credit" or simply "offset," is a financial instrument equivalent to one metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) avoided or removed from the atmosphere that can be bought, sold, or transferred. Offset credit revenues are used to fund carbon removal, reduction or avoided carbon emission projects. Carbon offsets vary in price, geographic origin and project type. Projects can be either nature-based, such as avoided deforestation, or they can be technology-based, such as direct air capture with carbon storage (DACCS.)
Carbon Offset Project Types
Project Type
Definition
Examples
Direct emission reductions
Emission reductions that occur at the same location the reduction activity is implemented
GHG Destruction: Agricultural methane, Coal methane, Landfill methane, Industrial gas
Avoided emissions
Activity that avoids the release of stored carbon into the atmosphere
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), fuel switching
Carbon Removal
Removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through technological or nature-based approaches that are managed to ensure a permanent reduction of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide
Sequestration: direct air capture, afforestation/reforestation, bio-energy with carbon capture and storage
Indirect emission reductions
Projects that cause an emission reduction to occur at a location other than the project site. Requires clear chain of custody to be established for ownership and claims of emission reductions
Renewable Energy generation
Achieving Carbon Neutrality: A Strategy for Procuring High-Quality Carbon Offset Credits
Today, to further our climate action annually, we must invest in high-quality projects that avoid or remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere. Our need to use carbon offsets will decrease over time through the continuous deployment of decarbonization solutions across our business towards our carbon neutral goal.
Step 1: Define Carbon Offset Strategy
Our first step in procuring carbon offsets was defining our strategy and determining which project characteristics are most important to our business. Two core characteristics stood out to us: ambition and engagement.
Because of the relatively small size of our carbon footprint, we chose to limit our purchase to two high-quality, nature-based projects that represent both carbon removal and avoided emissions to make up our portfolio of carbon offset projects.
High Quality: ENGIE Impact evaluated the core essential quality criteria when procuring our carbon offsets. Examples of these criteria included ensuring that the selected carbon offsets delivered an additional MtCO2e not claimed by another party, that the offsets were measured against a realistic baseline, that they had associated co-benefits for local communities and species, and that they were third-party verified.
Nature-Based: ENGIE Impact chose to invest in nature-based solutions because of the critical role that nature—specifically preserving and regenerating nature—plays in climate mitigation, resilience and the broader climate crisis. Additionally, nature-based solutions often come with critical co-benefits for biodiversity, communities and water systems.
Carbon Removal and Avoided Emissions: Our carbon neutrality strategy utilizes both high-quality avoided emissions projects and removals. According to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), avoiding emissions and removing emissions from the atmosphere at scale are required to stay below 1.5°C of warming.
Best Practices
Align your offset strategy to corporate sustainability strategy.
Prioritize high-quality offsets.
Step 2: Assess the landscape of high-quality carbon offset projects
We benefitted from the decades of expertise brought by our carbon markets advising team, who conducted an extensive competitive RFP solicitation specific to nature-based projects, which informed our carbon offset selection. For companies with less internal expertise or capacity, experts at ENGIE Impact can help to evaluate and recommend the best approach or even facilitate the process of carbon offset selection. Our services include issuing RFPs, partnering directly with project developers to originate projects and working with a third-party brokers that have existing project portfolios.
Best Practice
Follow carbon market trends and changing guidance on the appropriate use and best practices for carbon offsets.
Step 3: Conduct additional due diligence on carbon offset project finalists
After completing an initial screen of the projects submitted through the competitive solicitation, we followed a two-step due diligence process that leveraged:
Customized developer interviews to better understand and address any outstanding quality questions or concerns. Project vendors were asked to elaborate on the co-benefits to the communities and ecosystems beyond the carbon benefits.
Engage with Carbon Market consultants to help ensure high-quality carbon projects and reduce exposure to reputational risk associated with investing in complex, long-term projects around the world.
Best Practice
Thoroughly evaluate each carbon project for alignment with key quality criteria.
Step 4: Engage and educate employees with the final say on carbon offset projects
After completing thorough due diligence, we narrowed our options down to two carbon offset projects that met our requirements. On the 51st anniversary of Earth Day, we asked our employees to vote on their preferred project, giving them a voice in designing our carbon offset strategy. By using a gamification approach and sharing educational materials on the role of carbon offsets and the specific projects we evaluated, we empowered our employees to make the final decision on project selection.
Best Practice
Empower employees to fuel the success of the sustainability strategy.
Navigating Voluntary Carbon Markets
We are proud to report continued progress along our decarbonization journey, driving leading-edge sustainability practices. As the market evolves, we are committed to adapting our strategy and considerations accordingly. We’re closely monitoring the evolution of net zero and carbon neutral guidance, the development of carbon markets guidance under the Paris Agreement and changing technologies and standards for what defines high-quality carbon offsets.
ENGIE Impact is going beyond using our expertise to craft our own comprehensive carbon offset strategies and partnering with a wide range of diverse stakeholders to continue to shape the future of carbon markets.
The authors would like to thank Alexia Kelly and Nado Saab for their contribution to this article.
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