Reducing the size of our carbon footprints and greenhouse gas emissions is gaining importance on businesses’ agendas; either due to more people caring about the planet, or because the UK government have announced their target of being net zero by 2050 and it’s rumoured that some businesses who adopt this early on and are net zero way before 2050 will receive funding… The real reason behind it isn’t important, the fact it is being taken seriously by more people is.
So, what can businesses do exactly to reduce their carbon footprint? And how do we go about achieving net zero? We’ve looked at the two most successful approaches and have explained all of the ins and outs of insetting and offsetting carbon.
Carbon Offsetting
You may have heard of carbon offsetting as a few large companies, such as EasyJet, are offsetting the carbon emissions from their business activities. Sounds impressive…but what does it actually mean and what does it involve?
What is carbon offsetting?
Carbon offsetting is an initiative which is being adopted by businesses with excessive carbon emissions, where they invest in projects and activities which focus on taking carbon out of the atmosphere.
How do I offset carbon?
To offset your carbon emissions, you first need to calculate how much carbon you’re emitting. Once you’ve established your CO2 output, you can then choose a project you’d like to contribute towards and the monetary value associated with it. You make payment, and that’s all there is to offsetting carbon emissions for that specific activity.
Carbon offsetting is very much an “after the event” approach to achieving net zero as it’s a case of counteracting the bad that your business is responsible for. Don’t get me wrong, it is without a doubt helping the planet and is more positive than doing nothing, but it doesn’t, and isn’t, encouraging involved parties to change their attitude or behaviour towards carbon emitting activities. And that’s where carbon insetting comes into it.
Carbon Insetting
Carbon insetting is nowhere near as talked about or as popular as carbon offsetting, so don’t worry if you haven’t heard of it. Both carbon offsetting and carbon insetting focus on reducing our carbon footprint by removing carbon emissions from the atmosphere, the difference comes in the manner which they’re done in.
What is carbon insetting?
Carbon insetting is still all about reducing your carbon footprint, but instead of it taking place in an unrelated area and after the activity took place, carbon insetting focuses on reducing carbon emissions within the supply chain itself. It puts the onus on businesses to identify the high carbon areas throughout the whole manufacturing process for their products or services and invest their time, money, and effort into reducing and minimising the carbon emissions from those areas.
Carbon insetting focuses and addresses the issue in hand; reworking activities which produce high levels of carbon. There is therefore a lot more work involved with carbon insetting, particularly compared to carbon offsetting as that can be done in just a few clicks, but it’s absolutely worth it. You’re no longer firefighting and counteracting the bad that’s been done, you’re actively making changes so the bad doesn’t happen in the first place.
For the UK to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, attention will be predominately on offsetting emissions instead of insetting due to the sheer amount of work associated with it on this large scale. Insetting carbon is without a doubt the future of smaller carbon footprints all round, but it does require significant work which, sadly, I’m not sure how many businesses are prepared to do, particularly when there’s an easier alternative. A lot of businesses want to be seen as sustainable and to be known to care about the environment, and carbon offsetting schemes are a very good and easy way of doing this. And it does the planet some good too!
Will you be going for offsetting or insetting in your own operation? Let us know!