CarbonetiX through its partner Carbon Neutral, provides Carbon Offsetting and Carbon Neutrality solutions.
WHAT IS CARBON OFFSETTING?
Organisations are looking for ways to lessen their negative impact on our environment. This may include making buildings more energy efficient, using renewable energy and driving or flying less often. However, even with best efforts, it is nearly impossible to reduce our carbon footprint to zero.
A way of negating these unavoidable carbon emissions is to pay for greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions to be made elsewhere, such as via tree plantings, wind farms and hydroelectricity. This is known as carbon offsetting.
If enough offsets are purchased to balance all emissions remaining after reduction efforts, then the net emissions will be zero. This is known as carbon neutrality.
Carbon offsetting is a market-based mechanism and is typically transacted in metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e). Purchasing one tonne of carbon offset means there will be one less tonne of carbon dioxide (or an equivalent greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere than there otherwise would have been.
WHY USE CARBON OFFSETS?
Along with their key benefit – creating reductions in greenhouse gas emissions – voluntary carbon offset purchases also allow companies to:
- take responsibility for their own climate impact
- demonstrate leadership, going beyond government regulations or incentives
- enhance brand perception, especially in the eyes of environmentally conscious consumers
- meet environmental procurement requirements
- tangibly demonstrate Corporate Social Responsibility policy and overarching business plans and strategies
- gain positive media coverage
- increase staff motivation and be an employer of choice
- just do the right thing
Carbon offsetting and carbon neutrality have become powerful, credible choices for companies that are looking to make considerable reductions in their carbon footprint.
WHAT IS A CARBON OFFSET PROJECT?
Carbon offset projects either avoid, reduce or sequester (remove) GHG from entering the atmosphere. Wind farms, for example, create renewable energy and reduce the need for conventional sources such as coal burning generators. Other typical offset projects are solar farms, small hydroelectric projects, tree plantings, biogas, methane avoidance, landfill gas, and fuel-efficient cook stoves.
High quality voluntary carbon credits are issued in compliance with a number of schemes and standards to meet the following, crucial criteria:
- A real project, and measurable
- Additional to a business-as-usual scenario
- Permanent
- Independently verified
FEATURED PROJECT
Unaccredited biodiverse native trees – Plantings are in degraded farming land in the Western Australian wheatbelt, Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor.
About 90% of the northern Wheatbelt was cleared for agriculture from the early 1900s. This removed so much native habitat that many plant and animal species went extinct locally or regionally. Others, however, hung on in woodland and shrubland remnants usually on rocky ridges and commercially less productive upper valley slopes.
They are independently verified and audited each year, are monitored regularly, are genuinely biodiverse, with a 100-year protection under Carbon Rights and Carbon Covenants. An internal register of inventory allocations is maintained.
COST
The price of carbon offsets vary from AU$5 to $35 and is dependent on the project choice, the certification standard and the volume purchased.
Anyone can purchase carbon offsets and use them to balance all, or part, of their own emissions and Carbonetix, through our partner Carbon Neutral can provide the right solution for you.
Please contact one of our sales engineers to discuss further how you can offset your carbon footprint.