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. Their websites provide ‘calculators’ to work out how much carbon your activities produce and then tell you how much you will need to contribute to offset this.
The UK government underwent a consultation earlier in 2007 regarding potential standards for companies offering the offsetting of carbon emissions. This came after concerns that some companies do not use the money wisely and, indeed, that a large proportion of the contributions goes towards administration costs. As a result of the consultation, a framework for a Code of Practice on carbon offsetting was announced in February 2008.
