Carbon Offsets

The best sort of emission is one that doesn't occur; where-ever possible reduce energy usage or replace the energy you currently use with a renewable source such as wind or solar.

Greenhouse gases can also be reduced through offset projects. Sequestration projects are where greenhouse gases are removed from the atmosphere and avoidance projects are where the emission of greenhouses gases is reduced relative to a baseline (although some emissions may still occur).

Sequestration may be achieved through projects such as tree planting (to take up carbon) or by increasing soil carbon storage.

Avoided emissions projects include projects where emissions that would normally occur (e.g. methane emissions from a landfill) are captured and treated to reduce their greenhouse intensity. For example, simply burning methane will provide a greenhouse benefit: when burnt methane is converted to carbon dioxide and, because methane is 22 times more radiatively active than carbon dioxide, converting 1 tonne of methane to a tonne of carbon dioxide reduces the greenhouse impact by a factor of around 20.

While many individuals, businesses and organisations are offering to sell “carbon offsets”, not all of these have been verified to demonstrate that they are achieving real emission reductions or sequestration. BalanceCarbon has a policy of only purchasing credits that lead to real emissions reductions.

All carbon credits recognised by BalanceCarbon and acceptable for use as part of ZeroC labelling include, the following third party verified credits:-

• Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Certified Emission Reductions (CER’s)
• Joint Implementation Mechanism JI ERU’s
• Greenhouse Friendly (VER’s)
• Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCU’s (VC Units))
• Gold Standard Verified Emission Reduction (GSVER’s)
• New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme Credits (NGAC’s)

In Australia, we only sell credits verified by the Australian Greenhouse Office Greenhouse Friendly program, and the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. In countries outside of Australia, we have a preference for Gold Standard verified projects. In other countries that have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, alternative arrangements for independently verified credits can be discussed.