Carbon emissions are produced every day as we are in our homes, use our cars and in our workplaces. There are many ways in which we can help to cut these emissions and our Cutting Carbon Emissions page has some suggestions to get you started. To offset carbon emissions is to contribute in some way to sustainable projects which produce less carbon dioxide or actually absorb it, and there are a number of companies which will offset carbon emissions on your behalf.
Cutting emissions is now widely considered to be the only way to reduce the impact of global warming and more needs to be done by individuals, companies and governments to make this happen. To offset carbon emissions can mean planting trees, introducing energy efficient measures or installing renewable energy, but these are all measures which should be undertaken where possible anyway. As cutting carbon emissions completely, however, is not possible in our modern society, perhaps to offset carbon emissions could be considered a last resort in order to further reduce our impact on the environment.
There are many organisations which will offset carbon emissions by taking your contributions and using them to fund their projects. The Carbon Footprint Calculator on our site allows you to calculate your footprint and offset some or all of your emissions if you wish.
The UK government has a Quality Assurance Scheme in place for carbon offsetting and approved companies can display a quality mark indicating that they meet the scheme’s criteria. These criteria include that the company will accurately calculate your emissions and sell good quality carbon credits with transparent pricing. Details of approved schemes and more information on the criteria can be found on the DirectGov website.
Source: ACT ON CO2 2011
