Whether it’s the latest scientific studies or reports of shrinking icecaps and abnormal weather conditions the media is full of climate change and the environment. It’s a serious issue and one that affects us all.

More and more businesses are looking at their ‘green credentials’ and how they can use them as a bargaining chip in a highly competitive market. Many are making a genuine effort to reduce waste and energy consumption, increase recycling, and to look at alternative energy sources. Others claim to be carbon neutral.

Mankind and Mother Nature

Everything we do leaves a carbon footprint. By our very design, humans and animals give out carbon dioxide each time we exhale (and methane from other orifices). Since the dawn of time mankind has lit fires to cook on and keep warm. This releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However, the planet balances out the oxygen-breathing, CO2 producing fauna with flora. Plants and trees take in CO2 and give out oxygen.

Since the Industrial Revolution though, mankind’s capability to produce CO2 has increased dramatically, and to make way for a rapidly expanding population forests have been destroyed. We are no longer living in harmony with Mother Nature and we are producing far more CO2 than She can deal with.

Carbon Neutral

So what is ‘carbon neutral’? Well, using some fancy calculations you can work out your carbon footprint. The theory is that if you offset the same amount of carbon as you are producing you are then ‘carbon neutral’. You can donate money to projects designed to offset a certain amount of carbon. This can be through reforestation or sustainable energy sources such as wind farms or hydro-electric plants, to name but a few.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Until you search online for a ‘carbon calculator’ and realise that it’s not an exact science. Different websites use different calculations, and a lot of it is guess-work and estimation. Then there are the projects themselves: in the case of a forestry project the amount of carbon saved is an estimation, often over 100 years.

To complicate matters more the carbon-offsetting industry is unregulated, which means nobody is keeping an eye on them. An investigation by the Guardian newspaper revealed that in some cases projects were unlikely to offset the amount of carbon originally forecast or promised. There is also nothing stopping a company selling ‘carbon credits’ for a project that hasn’t started yet, or simply doesn’t exist. And how many companies may have bought the same credits?

Going Green

Despite all this, those projects that are in existence are working towards the greater good. Managing forests, preventing further deforestation, encouraging communities to use the energy sources they have more efficiently and investing in renewable energy, all these things are a positive step in the right direction.

Raising money for projects like these cannot be easy and credit should be given to the enterprising idea of exploiting the commercial world’s eagerness to cash in on a ‘quick win’. If businesses are willing to sponsor ‘green’ projects then why should they be stopped?

Emperor’s New Clothes

Unfortunately, for the businesses who believe they are going ‘carbon neutral’, carbon offsetting can be likened to The Emperor’s New Clothes. In the case of forestry projects, a business can produce more carbon in ten years than the forest could neutralise in a century. And if the forest already exists then is it really offsetting anything?

As attractive as the ‘low hanging fruit’ may be to a business carbon offsetting is not going to save the planet. Reducing carbon footprints can only be truly achieved from within, by making an effort to actually make a difference.