Do better than offsets

Carbon offsets are an easy way to declare that your organisation is “carbon neutral”.

Measure your emissions, plant that many trees and boom, you’re neutral.

There are so many problems with this. Just a handful:

• It doesn’t stop your emissions
• You need shitloads of trees to offset emissions – one person in a developed country needs up to 1,000 trees to offset their personal emissions each year
• The trees you plant can take years, likely decades, to grow to maturity
• There’s a constant dark cloud over offset projects. Some are credible, many are not, and some tragically have burned.

The best way around offsets is what the target really is anyway – reducing your output in the first place.

Allbirds, the shoe and apparel company, have laid this out spectacularly on their sustainable practices page. As they say, it doesn’t take 30 years to create an offset program and I totally agree.

Offsets are needed but as they put it, it’s chapter one – not the whole playbook.

It starts with an immediate commitment, some quick wins, and riding the momentum of those wins.