We work with our clients to build a portfolio of carbon credits that works with their criteria for geography, technology, volume, local community impact, profile of the client brand and budget.  Over the ten years we have been in business, we have continued to invest in a quality assurance programme which underpins everything we do.

Standards

The type of projects that we invest in is defined by The CarbonNeutral Protocol.  

There are projects that meet standards which will automatically pass through the Protocol eg Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), CDM, Gold Standard, and (once formalised) Voluntary Carbon Standard.  For VER projects which have not met those standards but which are strong, we apply the base tests and criteria of the Protocol.

Carbon offset is a 'virtual' buy and a secure audit trail has always been a critical part of our company policy.  We have robust procedures for selecting and contracting project partners, and we maintain first class databases to record all transactions. 

We continue to evolve best practice systems including, for example, the annual commissioning of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to review our carbon chain of custody.  Unique in the carbon world, it means that PwC match contracts with clients to contracts with offset partners, and assures that what we promise is actually delivered.  This verifies that there is no double selling and that carbon credits are retired correctly. Please click through for a description of the full quality assurance programme which underpins our business, and for specific Carbon Reports.  

For even greater transparency, all our projects we work with and the accompanying documentation, are listed on our Offset Project Registry.

Projects need to pass through a detailed due dilligence process and the project lifecycle can take from one month to over one year depending on the complexity of the scheme and data.

  Examples of technology criteria:

• The technology used must be significantly different to that used locally, and the project must not be subject to any regulatory requirements
• The offsets or carbon credits delivered have to be readily verifiable by a third party
• The technology needs to promote a more sustainable future and we work with a number of project types to achieve that:
  • Renewables (wind, wave, solar, geothermal, benign, hydro, biomass)
  • Fuel switching / mixing to biomass
  • Transportation / logistics projects
  • Waste to energy with additional benefits (e.g. bagasse combustion, animal waste combustion).
  • Energy efficiency and demand-side management

click here to view a short video clip of our project partner SELCO, winner of the Ashden Award for Outstanding Achievement.

Project verification and the CarbonNeutral guarantee

• Checking the amount of carbon offset by the project (baseline calculation)
• Monitoring it over the lifetime of the project
• Investing in additional offset projects (as ‘insurance’ to ensure there will be enough carbon credits)
• Running a verified register to record which customers' CO2 has been neutralised.

Every tonne of carbon offset sold by The CarbonNeutral Company is 100% guaranteed: in the unlikely event that a offset scheme fails to deliver its projected reductions, we make up the shortfall.  This means that all CarbonNeutral claims remain robust.

Can carbon offset projects fail to deliver carbon reductions?

Yes, they can.  If your money is being put into a project that estimates how much CO2 will be saved going forward, then that project could under or over perform.  That’s particularly true of the smaller projects in developing countries (where there may be a dependence on local communities learning new skills quickly) and with forestry schemes (because trees are liable to suffer from a range of problems such as fire, pest, or drought).  There have been some real problems faced by one of the projects we support for example - Mango trees in Indiarun by the charity, Women for Sustainable Development.  We identify issues such as these through our regular monitoring reports and visits, and put projects on ‘red’ when there’s a remedial action plan needed.

If it is clear that the project will fail completely, we take it off our carbon books and make up the shortfall from other schemes at our own cost.  We do this because the investment policy is our risk - not the clients - and we guarantee to our clients that every tonne of carbon offset they buy will result in one tonne of CO2 being reduced through a project. 

Regardless of the challenge, we believe that it's important to support smaller and entrepreneurial schemes as part of the carbon mix - and many of them work very well to reduce CO2, create job opportunities, improve skill levels. A light bulb project we work with in Jamaica is a case in point.