Making Sense of the Voluntary Carbon Market: A Comparison of Carbon Offset Standards

Polycarp, Clifford
Zink, Helge
Kollmuss, Anja

2008

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Carbon offsetting is an increasingly popular means of taking action. By paying someone else to reduce GHG emissions elsewhere, the purchaser of a carbon offset aims to compensate for – or “offset” – their own emissions. Individuals seek to offset their travel emissions and companies claim “climate neutrality” by buying large quantities of carbon offsets to “neutralize” their carbon footprint or that of their products. Carbon offset markets exist both under compliance schemes and as voluntary programs. Compliance markets are created and regulated by mandatory regional , national, and international carbon reduction regimes, such as the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme. Voluntary offset markets function outside of the compliance markets and enable companies and individuals to purchase carbon offsets on a voluntary basis (see chapter 2.2). With more than € 20 billion traded in 2006 (Capoor & Ambrosi, 2007), carbon markets are already a substantial economic force and will likely grow considerably over the coming years. The voluntary market, although much smaller than the compliance market, (€62.6 million in 2006; Hamilton, 2007) is also growing rapidly. This report discusses the role of the voluntary carbon offset market and provides an overview and guide to the most important currently available voluntary carbon offset standards using the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as a benchmark. The report compares the standards side-by-side and outlines the most pertinent aspects of each. [Extracto: Executive Summary]

Carbon Offets; Estándares; Mercado de Carbono;