How carbon offsetting can benefit your business

Simply put, carbon offsetting is the process of reducing/removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, either directly or indirectly, to offset the greenhouse gases (GHG) you and your business have put into it. 

In lieu of every business becoming carbon neutral, carbon offsetting will play a huge role in achieving net zero. 

There are many ways to offset, but the key thing is that you do not use it as a way to continue business as usual. We can’t offset our way out of the climate crisis.

Carbon mitigation is only effective when coupled with carbon reduction and therefore businesses should also be proactively reducing their emissions as well as offsetting them.  

The easiest way to offset the carbon your business produces is to voluntarily invest in carbon offsetting and climate protection projects.  

Implemented through a range of climate finance initiatives, businesses can invest in a variety of projects.  

Some of the main ones are:  

• Forestry and conservation. This is things like planting trees, rewilding fields and recultivating wetlands. 

• Renewables. This includes investing in wind, solar, hydro and geothermal energy generation. 
• Waste-to-energy. This is investing in processes that generate biofuels from household, commercial and industrial waste. 

Further information about the projects you can support to offset your carbon footprint is available here. 

While at first it may seem like a cost to your business to invest in carbon offsetting initiatives, it’s important to recognise that reducing CO2 emissions is fast becoming the responsibility of businesses big and small.  

The government has set a target to get the UK to net-zero by 2050 and will be mandating that businesses have strategies in place for supporting that aim.  

Some of the main benefits of carbon offsetting include:  

• Reduce your carbon footprint: This is the biggest and most obvious benefit carbon offsetting brings.  
• A cleaner environment: If all businesses offset their carbon, then the result will be less pollution, better air quality and rejuvenated natural assets for all.  
• Customer loyalty: Customers want the businesses they buy from to take action on climate change and carbon offsetting is one way to show that.  
• Talent retention: Staff surveys show that people are increasingly choosing where they work based on a company’s environmental record.  
• Stand out from competitors: In today’s tight labour market, one way to stand out is to show your business cares about sustainability. 
• Get ahead of regulation: Energy intensive industries already have to pay for their emissions by purchasing carbon credits under the UK emissions trading scheme (ETS). This could affect all industries in the future.
• Improve your chances in tender opportunities: It is increasingly demanded during any procurement process that a tendering company takes steps to evidence their sustainable values.

The science is clear that human activity is driving concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere to unsustainable levels, warming the planet at an unprecedented rate and putting the very future of humanity at stake.  

Climate change requires every country in the world to take action and businesses have a central role to play in supporting the push to net-zero.  

Carbon offsetting is an important tool for bringing about the low carbon economy that the world so badly needs.  

When coupled with carbon reduction efforts, carbon offsetting can help businesses transform their impact on the planet into a positive one.