Letting companies buy carbon credits to compensate for their pollution presents “clear risks,” the world’s largest verifier of corporate climate targets said in a report released Tuesday.
Businesses, trade groups and environmental nongovernmental organizations that commented for the Science-Based Target initiative’s report examining whether carbon credits can play a role in reducing companies’ pollution problem overwhelmingly argued that “treating carbon credits as fungible with other sources, sinks, or reductions of emissions is inadvisable, illogical, or damaging to global mitigation goals.”
The paper, which was released alongside two other technical documents as part of a broader revamp of SBTi’s corporate climate rules, was awaited with trepidation by the industry after the organization became embroiled in controversy when its board unexpectedly signaled a pivot from its stance against carbon offsetting, sparking a backlash among its own staff and advisers.
The furor arose in April, when the board published a statement saying that companies could use carbon credits to compensate for their Scope 3 emissions, those generated throughout their value chains, which often account for a significant majority of their total carbon footprint.
