As more businesses strive to reduce their carbon footprint, carbon offsetting has become an increasingly popular solution. This approach allows companies to compensate for unavoidable emissions by investing in schemes that absorb or reduce carbon elsewhere.
At Nivo, we offset emissions we can’t eliminate, enabling us to operate as a carbon-negative business. As a digital agency, we also work to help website owners and clients understand their digital carbon footprint and explore offsetting options where reductions aren’t feasible. So how does this work?
What is carbon offsetting?
Carbon offsetting involves neutralising the emissions a business generates by supporting carbon-reducing initiatives.
While it’s nearly impossible to eliminate all emissions, particularly for digital operations like websites, offsetting can help businesses achieve carbon-neutral or carbon-negative status. Websites themselves produce significant CO2, but they can be optimised for low-carbon performance. Offset investments ensure emissions are balanced through external projects.
Beyond servers and hosting, it’s crucial to consider the carbon impact of devices like laptops, PCs, and phones. Calculating your business’s digital carbon footprint is the first step toward sustainability. Tools and expert guidance, including support from Nivo, can help you identify areas for improvement.
Types of Carbon Offsetting Schemes and Understanding Carbon Credits
Carbon offsetting schemes vary widely. Popular examples include forest preservation, rewilding, and tree planting. Other initiatives focus on reducing fossil fuel reliance through renewable energy, fairtrade projects that lower emissions, or improved agricultural methods.
Certified schemes provide carbon credits, with each credit representing one tonne of carbon emissions. Businesses can purchase these credits to offset an equivalent amount of their own emissions, playing an active role in fostering a more sustainable future.
Which is the best carbon offsetting scheme for a digital business?
Selecting the right carbon offsetting scheme is crucial, as some are more effective at mitigating climate change than others. Here’s what to consider:
1. Renewable Energy Projects
Supporting renewable projects are arguably the best form of offset, as these are addressing the focal problem: using fossil fuels for energy. Wind projects are thought to be some of the most sustainable as they offer new jobs and help an area or country become energy-independent.
2. Tree Planting and Forest Preservation
Trees act as natural carbon absorbers, making tree planting a popular offset choice. However, trees absorb carbon slowly and must remain intact for centuries to be truly effective. Additionally, reforestation cannot fully compensate for deforestation, which also impacts wildlife, ecosystems, and communities.
Forest preservation schemes, like REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), aim to protect existing forests. While well-intentioned, these initiatives are controversial due to potential issues like shifting deforestation elsewhere. Social complexities in affected regions often make outcomes uncertain..
3. Transformational Projects
Investing in political and educational initiatives can drive systemic change. These projects may create long-term benefits, such as improving awareness, supporting policy changes, or empowering communities to adopt sustainable practices.
Certified Carbon Offsetting Schemes
Most importantly, you should select individual projects that are quality standard checked by widely recognised certifying bodies. Nivo recommends and supports schemes via the Gold Standard, an industry-leading certification programme that has both social and environmental benefits.
Gold Standard-certified “Climate+” projects have a wider socio-economic benefit to communities – for example employment, health improvements, biodiversity and other factors that contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
They also allow for independent monitoring which means that carbon savings and reductions can be seen and tracked by developers outside the corporation. This ensures accurate and unbiased reporting.
Why Nivo is Committed to Going Carbon Negative?
At Nivo, going carbon negative is a key part of our green pledge. We’ve chosen to go beyond net zero by actively eliminating the carbon our company has produced over time.
It is important to remember that carbon offsetting is not a universal answer for climate mitigation. On its own, it won’t do much to reduce the volume of emissions being generated. Offsetting schemes also raise ethical questions: should we really be getting people from low-income communities to reduce their emissions on our behalf?
Read Nivo’s story here on how we are minimising our digital carbon footprint, and how we are encouraging our clients to do the same by providing sustainable and climate-friendly website design services.
Next Steps
If you’d like to learn more about reducing your company’s digital carbon footprint through sustainable web design or carbon offsetting, get in touch with Nivo Digital – we’d love to help!
