Introduction

Every day another company is stating their intention to go carbon neutral from News Corp. to Marks & Spencer and Australian companies such as IAG, NAB, Westpac and ANZ. There are even more companies that decide to delve into offsets without contemplating neutrality–so what is the difference, if any, between companies that offset only and companies that aim for neutrality?

Carbon neutrality and offsetting seems like a Pandora’s box of contradictory issues that poses more questions than it solves. To offset or not to offset, and which offset–it increasingly seemed to be an ethical issue for organisations. How does a business calculate its carbon equivalent emissions and how far up or downstream do they need to go?

The moveable feast of offsets available are also confusing–from tree-planting, methane-capture and flaring to renewable energy. The variance in price of these offsets provides no clarity either. Should you go for the least expensive offset or the offset that best matches your business aims? And which ones are reputable?

With the global offset market expanding by 300% between 2005 and 2006, it is estimated that the market will be worth in excess of US$600 million in just three years. It soon became obvious to us that offsets differ as much in quality, reputation and reliability as they do in price.

This confusion prompted a research paper by TEC called Carbon Neutral Watch and the subsequent quarterly debate – Going Carbon Neutral. This paper seeks to delve into some of these issues with a broad spectrum of opinion on carbon neutrality and hopefully will shed some light on the surrounding issues of offsetting, reliability and steps to neutrality.

We would like to thank all our contributors. We encourage people to send any additional thoughts and ideas to us at Green Capital. Your contribution as an individual, organisation or community group would be invaluable to the enrichment of the debate and future directions of carbon neutrality.

Megan Lynch
Associate Director
Total Environment Centre – Green Capital Program
green.capital@tec.org.au