Carbon Offset Cycle

From start to finish, a carbon offset touches many hands and crosses many desks. It’s the culmination of many people’s collaborative efforts.

The cycle begins when a project developer comes up with an idea for a new offset project. The project registers with a registry, which verifies that the project meets all of the requirements to generate offsets. Once the project is registered, it can begin generating offsets. Buyers, who can be either individuals or corporations, then purchase the offsets. The offset buyer pays for the offsets, which go to the project developer. The project receives much-needed income from the sale and makes it sustainable in the long run. The cycle ends when the offsets are retired.

Step 1
The Generation & Verification

The carbon offset lifecycle begins when project developers reduce or remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Offsets create a wide variety of different methodologies, including but not limited to efforts in forestry, agricultural, and energy efficiency.

Once a project developer has reduced or removed a certain amount of CO2, they will work with an independent third party to verify the reductions. The verification process is important to ensure that the reductions are real, permanent, and additional. Once verified, the developers can receive carbon offsets representing every 1 tonne of CO2 removed from the atmosphere.

Step 2
The Purchase & Purpose

Organizations & individuals that want to neutralize their footprint purchase carbon offsets from a project. Through carbon offsetting, organizations and individuals fund projects that help reduce or neutralize their environmental impacts. For example, some buy into projects with positive co-benefits, such as renewable energy. Others may use them simply for air travel reduction.

Some of the most significant institutional buyers of carbon offsets include prominent corporations, universities, and governments. For example, Google recently spent almost $1 billion on carbon offsets, and Microsoft has purchased offsets to offset emissions from its cloud computing services. The University of California system has offset emissions from its campuses and research facilities. The government of the United Kingdom has also used offsets to help meet self-imposed climate targets.

Step 3
The Impact

Buying carbon offsets provides essential financing for this market's continued growth and supply. Once the organization or individual purchases the offsets, project developers use that money to finance more sustainable projects and continue offsetting more carbon. The key to a successful carbon offset program is that the offsets must be retired. This way, they can no longer be sold or used again, making the reductions permanent.

Step 4
Retirement

Ensuring an offset can only be claimed once; retiring means taking it out of circulation. It's as if you bought a ticket to the movies. You could pass the ticket around, but eventually, someone will see the film. At that point, the attendant tears the ticket so nobody else can use it.

Retirement is important to maintain the integrity of carbon markets and prevent double-counting of emissions reductions. The retirement process must be verifiable and transparent so that there is no doubt the offset has been retired. Once units are retired, they are removed from circulation and can no longer be bought or sold.

There are a few different ways to retire an offset. The most common is to submit it to a retirement platform like the Verra Registry or the Gold Standard Impact Registry. These platforms keep track of all the information about offsets, including when they were retired and by whom. Another method includes retiring directly through the platform where the offsets are purchased.

Issues within the Existing Model

Creating Uniform Standards: Today’s carbon markets lack the liquidity needed for trading because of how unique the offsets are. Each one varies in type, vintage, and location, among other underlying qualities that can add or detract value from the offset. Since buyers value additional attributes differently, the inconsistency among products means that matching an individual buyer with a corresponding supplier is inefficient and time-consuming. We need to create standards for offset projects to follow to help buyers find sellers that meet their needs.

Accurate Accounting & Open Doors: Another common concern about the carbon markets is how accurately registries and validation bodies are issuing credits. Most of the trade activity in this space happens over-the-counter, which means behind closed doors. These interactions limit transparency in the market and lead to problems like double-counting offsets. Participants need access to price data and transaction histories to make informed purchasing decisions that spark genuine climate impact.

Scalable Infrastructure: Voluntary carbon markets are not growing at the rate we need before irrecoverable climate disaster strikes. They need to accommodate for listing and trading high-volume and account for a consistently defined set of additional attributes. This system supports carbon offsets as proper financial instruments and improves accessibility to help project developers create more.

Conclusion

The carbon offset cycle is a way for businesses and individuals to fund projects that help reduce their environmental impact. This process begins with a project developer reducing or removing a certain amount of CO2. After that, an independent third party verifies the reductions. Once verified, the developers are issued one carbon offset to represent every tonne of CO2 removed from the atmosphere.

Organizations and individuals that want to neutralize their footprint purchase carbon offsets from these projects. The reductions are permanent and tied to the purchaser. The offsets will then be retired so they can no longer be sold or used again. By retiring offsets, organizations and individuals can finance more sustainable projects and continue offsetting more CO2.

If you’re interested in joining them in that endeavor, feel free to check out our website.