Popular carbon credits fail to offset emissions, probe shows
- Media Manager
- Sep 14, 2023
- 1 min read
The Straights Times
Published: September 15th, 2023
A popular category of carbon offsets held by a number of major publicly traded companies is significantly more prone to greenwashing than previously feared, according to a new investigation of the financial instruments.
The conclusion is based on work done by a team of 14 researchers in association with the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. The study looked at so-called Redd+ credits, which represent roughly a quarter of carbon offsets issued globally.
“Many of the researchers have been studying carbon-offset quality for many years, and even we were surprised,” Dr Barbara Haya, director at the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project and the lead researcher behind the report, said in an interview. “We found problems under every stone we turned.”
The findings may have serious implications for companies that have based their climate statements on the offsets probed in the study. That list includes energy firms Shell and Eni, and Delta Air Lines, according to an analysis of public data by Carbon Market Watch, a nonprofit that commissioned the Berkeley research.
The study also has ramifications for the traders of offsets, according to Mr Gilles Dufrasne, global carbon markets lead at Carbon Market Watch.
