In today's environmental sustainability landscape, companies are increasingly aware of their carbon footprint - the total amount of greenhouse gasses emitted directly or indirectly, usually expressed in tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Despite concerted efforts to measure and reduce emissions, companies end up with residual emissions that prove difficult to completely eliminate. From this starting point, we delve into the practice of offsetting emissions through the purchase of certified carbon credits.  In fact, residual emissions can be offset by supporting projects that mitigate or avoid an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases.

Through this system, tangible steps can be taken towards Net Zero while simultaneously supporting initiatives that safeguard our Planet's vital ecosystems.

What are Carbon Credits?

The Conservation International Foundation (CI) -  a non-profit organisation that operates internationally in over 30 countries in order to empower societies to responsibly and sustainably care for nature for the well-being of humanity - defines carbon credits as:

"A reduction of 1 metric ton in greenhouse gas emissions to compensate for 1 metric ton of emissions made somewhere else. A credit can be bought, sold or traded before it is “retired,” meaning it cannot be traded again, assuring that only the buyer can claim emissions cuts associated with that credit"

In the Voluntary Carbon Market, projects must be certified to receive carbon credits. To obtain both the certification and the credits, the proposed project must prove its ability to avoid or reduce emissions. There are several project typology options, spanning from nature-based to the tech ones: forest conservation, reforestation projects, renewable energy or clean cookstoves are just few examples of the projects that can be proposed to a registry to obtain the certification. Each registry has its own standards and methodologies, to which a project should comply in order to be accepted and be attributed with credits. 

Credits, or Verified Carbon Units, are, in fact, issued on the basis of the expected volume of emissions that a single project is predicted to avoid or reduce. The units are not being released all at once: monitoring and verification activities are being carried out regularly, to prove, year by year, that the foreseen emissions are really being avoided or reduced. Once this process is finalised, the next issuance of credits can be released. 

In the Voluntary Carbon Market everyone, including single individuals and companies, can purchase carbon credits to offset their carbon footprint. This action should be taken after a careful and trusted carbon auditing process, as well as a strong insetting strategy, to then offset only the residual emissions. Offset can be done only through the purchase and retirement of certified carbon credits. 

Retirement is the mandatory step to concretise the offset activity: in fact, after being retired, carbon units disappear from the registry of origin, ensuring that they are being used only once and preventing activities such as double counting. 

Carbon credits can be retired directly from the final user or can be retired on behalf of the user by a registry account holder. After the retirement is done, an official certificate is sent, describing all the details of the transaction and ready to be used as official documentation for public communication and offset claims. 

Carbon credit projects can be difficult to monitor. A perfect ally comes from satellite technology: by bridging you to every part of the world, satellites can collect key data about the project status and success rates. Satellite imagery can detect essential data for a deep understanding of the project, even carbon credits: for instance, above-ground biomass can be monitored, allowing a clear and transparent view of the carbon project you invested in. 

The difference between "Carbon Avoidance" and "Carbon Removal"

From a carbon perspective, climate mitigation and adaptation can be addressed with a double approach which includes both carbon emissions avoidance and carbon emission reduction. 

Carbon avoidance refers to the set of activities aimed at avoiding further emissions being released into the atmosphere, thus contributing to altering the climatic conditions and worsening global warming. Examples of carbon avoidance include renewable energy, industrial operations efficiency, forest conservation, and halting deforestation. Carbon avoidance is therefore aimed at working on the causes of emissions, adopting a mitigation approach. 

Carbon removal, instead, is focused on removing the CO2e already present in the atmosphere through different methods. This approach includes actions such as replanting forests, capturing the carbon directly from the air (Direct Air Capture - DAC), maximising soil management or using the Biomass Carbon Removal and Storage (BiCRS). 

So, while carbon avoidance adopts a mitigation approach working at the source of GHG emissions, carbon removal adopts an adaptation approach, focusing on managing the emissions already in the atmosphere and minimising their negative effects by reducing the emissions themselves. Carbon removal should not be confused with Carbon capture and storage (CCS) which is focused on capturing emissions at the source preventing them from entering the atmosphere. 

Transparency and Monitoring

Project monitoring is key to ensure the effectiveness of the planned activities and forecasted results. Nature-based projects can become very difficult to monitor, due to several reasons such as the extension or the remoteness of an area, or activities such as manual sampling. 

To effectively monitor and keep track of a project’s status, satellite monitoring is a game changer - through satellite images, in fact, key data can be collected almost in real time, giving a complete picture of the success rates of a single project. Green Future Project integrated Orbify, a satellite company that allows the analysis of satellite imagery, simplifying environmental impact measurement and monitoring of climate-positive projects. The optical imagery is provided by the European Space Agency Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission and by NASA's Landsat Program. Data, including information from the other two satellites such as Lidar and SAR, are then gathered by the Orbify geospatial data platform.

Thanks to this integration we can monitor the status of our projects tracking forest loss & gain ratio, forest canopy height, biomass levels and other key data, such as vegetation health index and air quality. For each project, a dedicated and customised set of components to be monitored is embedded, providing specific results that fit perfectly the monitoring needs and the project’s characteristics.

Carbon credits are key to promoting sustainability, particularly through projects focused on forest conservation and their invaluable role in carbon sequestration. By incentivising forest conservation and restoration efforts, carbon projects not only mitigate emissions but also protect biodiversity and support local communities.