Bring Carbon

Down to Earth.

Balance your CO2 emissions with the world’s best carbon projects. Bring carbon down to earth with forests and communities. Align with the regenerative power of Earth’s ecosystems.

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Net Zero by Nature

3 steps, one goal.

Net Carbon Zero is now the global target. Along with other B Corps we target Net Zero 2030 as the date. Everything we do is geared to this massive collective challenge. Carbon reduction that is nature and people powered.

01.

Calculate

Carbon footprint

Awareness of impact is the starting point of the journey. Use our range of carbon calculators to discover the footprint of your business or individual activity, such as travel and flights. We also provide carbon footprint consultancy either simple, at our flat rate for SMEs, or we can evaluate the impact of products and complex supply chains.

02.

balance

Remove Carbon

From awareness, balance your CO2 footprint by targeting technical carbon reduction and  investing in carbon removal projects bringing carbon down to earth. Our Carbon Balanced Programme & online carbon calculators connect you with Plan Vivo verified projects –  the world’s best nature based solutions. You’ll receive branded or personalised carbon balanced certificates.

03.

Engage

change culture

We don’t stop with certification.  Net Zero targets mean we cannot be too radical as we search for carbon reductions.  Our Wild Aligned Programme is designed for those who want to go the extra mile, making new projects happen and exploring radical change and innovation.  Join this programme to support early stage projects and build deeper engagement. 

Become Carbon Balanced

Start your awareness journey.  Calculate your footprint using our enterprise grade carbon calculators.  Use the C Level Hub to create branded versions for your customers. 

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Balance My Carbon

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Balance My Film

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Balance My Flight

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Balance My Travel

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Plant Trees

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Balance My Life

Our Programmes

Forests & people.

We only work with partners who are  delivering carbon, biodiversity and sustainable development goals.  We run two programmes.  Our global Carbon Balanced Programme provides Carbon Balanced Certification based on verified natural carbon removal.

Our European Wild Aligned Programme is for those who want to go the extra mile, a membership giving closer contact with inspirational rewilding projects.

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Carbon Balanced – Verified Carbon Projects

Success depends on the long-term involvement of local people, on their own terms, on their own lands. That’s why all our projects are co-created by the communities who receive long-term benefits and a real stake in the forests and ecosystems protected and restored.  Projects are run by dedicated NGO teams and are independently verified. The projects build full agency in the communities on the ground.

Read more about Plan Vivo & our Carbon Balanced Programme »

Forests Without Frontiers volunteers replanting trees in the Carpathian Forest in in Romania
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Wild Aligned – Experiential Projects

We cannot be too radical in our bringing about carbon reduction and new regenerative relationships.  We need a fertile ‘soil’ for change.  A change in consciousness, our soil as individuals.  And a change in culture, the soil for change in our organisations.  We need to open to change, to rewild ourselves and our businesses.  We can change culture not climate, by engaging with inspirational and experiential rewilding.

Read more about our Wild Aligned programme »

“We really appreciate the close connection between the project and C Level, which means we are sharing case studies and stories with our colleagues and other stakeholders about the impact Springer Nature is having.”

Thea Sherer, Head of Group Communications, Springer Nature

Creative

C Tech & story.

As well as the creativity that goes into both our ‘drawdown’ and ‘culture change’ programmes, we also give clients two further levels of innovation.  First, we have created a powerful approach to storytelling, making short films and micro-documentaries. Second, we are continually evolving our C Tech. A climate action platform for business that helps you (or your customers) to calculate your carbon footprint and then seamlessly access our carbon removal projects. Together through our Climate Tech we can channel more funds to the world’s best nature-based climate solutions. Receive your own Carbon Hub and access our suite of branded carbon calculators or use our Carbon Calculator API and integrate your carbon strategy with your products or services in real-time.

CARBON CALCULATOR & Balance API

Our Carbon API (application programming interface) allows the integration of real time carbon calculations directly into existing tech such as travel booking systems. It also lets us create client branded carbon calculators that you or your customers can use to purchase carbon, grow trees and receive branded certificates. The Carbon API has been piloted by Skyscanners and IBM.

Find out more about our Balance Carbon API »

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film & narrative

Our short films support our delivery partners and communities, helping them put their projects on the map and reach new supporters.  As a team, we make documentary not promos. All micro-docs start with the co-creation of a written narrative and end up with short stories that matter on the C Level 101visions channel.  

Find out more about our film making services »

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Carbon Offsetting FAQs

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How do carbon offsets work?

CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas and we are all responsible (to widely varying degrees) for adding to the (c)arbon level in the Earth’s atmosphere. Carbon offsetting, using verified carbon credits, is a way to take responsibility for your actions. When we do things that burn fossil fuels, directly (like driving a car) or indirectly (like using electricity), offsetting can compensate for the carbon we have released. The logic we use is #burntitbalanceit. This applies for individuals and businesses.  Balance comes from both carbon reduction and carbon offsetting.

Offsets are simply carbon credits that are created and accounted for in a transparent and public way. There are many different ways to do this.

Project developers can use man made technology, like wind turbines, damns and simple stuff like efficient cooking stoves, that are claimed to prevent or reduce the release of CO2 into the Earth’s atmosphere from burning less fossil fuels.

Or, we can create projects that are nature based solutions, working with the power of ecosystems to take carbon out of the Earth’s atmosphere, to bring carbon down to earth.  These are biologic carbon capture or drawdown projects.

Either way, a project gets designed to create a carbon benefit (e.g. less coal gets burnt to create electricity because more electricity is coming from renewables like wind power) or more relevant to C Level, a project is designed around either protecting forests or creating them.

C Level carbon offsetting uses probably the best technology we will ever have – trees! Trees have really got it together on the planet. They take CO2 in and give out Oxygen through photosynthesis. The CO2 gets locked away into the wood of the tree and into the soils of the forest. Forest carbon offsets are all about growing forests to do this. They can also be about creating carbon credits by intervening to stop deforestation happening to what remains of the Earth’s existing forests.

All of this can be done with indigenous trees and local communities – or without them!  Look out for the difference.

There are carbon standards that have been created to ensure projects have good methodologies and to oversee verification of the performance of the projects.

Plan Vivo  is the original standard for carbon credits and is the best one for also accounting for ecosystem and community benefits from projects. The standards are important in that they help demonstrate credibility and they also create the carbon credits on behalf of the projects. When this happens, the credits get added to project accounts on the international registers, like Markit Environmental Registry. From this point they can be sold and allocated to anyone needing to offset their carbon footprint. The use of these registries keeps track of available credits and makes this publicly visibly. It’s clear and increasingly sophisticated.

So basically, for C Level Projects, this is how it works. We find or help develop carbon projects suited to our main Carbon Balanced programme.  These are the most holistic projects based around action on carbon, action on forests, with communities.  The project will be designed and then verified under the Plan Vivo Standard and we will fund the project and help with project communications to create short stories that matter (C Level 101visions). The carbon credits are called Plan Vivo Certificates (each being equivalent to one tonne of CO2) and we will sell each one on to people and businesses looking to use carbon offsets to balance their CO2 emissions. When we have calculated your carbon footprint, and allocated you your certificates, we can certify you as carbon balanced, ensuring you are taking the most rigorous and holistic climate action you can.

Does carbon offsetting really help?

C Level is about Balance.  We use the term offsetting since it explains what we do, but again we have always offered this as part of the deeper proposition of being Carbon Balanced.  We view offsetting as viable and worthwhile action on carbon when 3 conditions are met:

First, carbon offsetting is the only way to balance your historic carbon footprint. The damage is done #burntitbalanceit. At the same time, set your carbon reduction targets aligned with Net Zero 2030.

Second, the offsetting project must be creating something of value in the world that did not exist before. The carbon consultants calls this ‘additionality’ and it means a genuine new carbon benefit created by the project.  Our projects are created, delivered and monitored by a network of people dedicated to the creation of new projects.

Third, view offsettting as part of something that can be much bigger, a Carbon Balanced achievement that includes impact on forests and people’s livelihoods.  The start of the journey.  Use it to justify going the extra mile, looking deeper at your business relations and impacts.  

Nature based solutions that are well designed and run create verified carbon offsets. But the best go way further. If you choose carefully, you can find projects that by their very nature are enormously beneficial to ecosystems and communities. For example, protecting existing forests, and encouraging their regeneration will impact big time on the life of the whole ecosystem. Biodiversity will benefit. Rivers and streams will flow. Soil erosion will be reversed. All of these ecological benefits will also benefit the people who live in and around the projects. Not just that, but the best projects will be designed with full involvement of the local community who will also receive long term payments and livelihood benefits.

CommuniTree for example, is now creating employment for hundreds of people and is a significant source of annual income to communities across an expanding area in Northern Nicaragua. It has evolved to become the country’s largest reforestion programme.

What are some examples of carbon offsets?

Carbon offset projects we love and work with

We love all the projects designed and verified under the global Plan Vivo Standard.

In particualr, CommuniTree is just one example of a project we are connecting businesses and individuals to for the purposes of carbon offsetting. Like many of our projects, it is award-winning. It has featured in a documentary produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and is increasingly visited by people from other countries who are inspired to learn about the project’s sophisticated ways of both monitoring tree planting and also ensuring that people are earning income for the long-term (without which any reforestation programme can be jeopardised).

Hadza Hunter Gatherers in the Yaeda Valley has won the UN Equator Award for outstanding nature-based solutions to sustainable development. Covering an area the size of the Dartmoor National Park, it is protecting the existing forests and creating real agency amonsgt the Hadza to ensure the way of life can also be protected.

UNDP’s Achim Steiner stated, “Every day, thousands of local communities and indigenous peoples around the world are quietly implementing innovative nature-based solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The Equator Prize  showcases the power of people and grassroots communities to bring about real change.”

At present, websites are popping up weekly offering tree planting as a climate solution.  Many do not create the same agency in commmunities, nor the long-term funding of  these award winning community-driven Plan Vivo projects.

Carbon offset projects we don’t work with

When the UK Government first announced its offsetting action on carbon emissions from departmental flights, we were massively underwhelmed to hear that one of the main projects was to be creating the carbon offset credits in Thailand. Sounds interesting, but wait, the project was all about paying an industrial pig farming business to clean up the septic ponds of pig excrement that were releasing methane (another much more potent greenhouse gas that has a CO2 equivalent some 30 times that of CO2 itself). Technology doing its job yes, but no account being taken of the big picture. Many technological offsets have a similiar narrow focus.

C Level only offers nature-based solutions – holistic projects under our Carbon Balanced programme, delivering action on carbon through the combined power of nature and people.

How do I buy carbon offsets?

C Level provides services that include the sale of verified carbon offsets to both individuals and businesses. In fact, we have been doing this since 2000.

Our offsets are called Verified or Voluntary Emission Reductions (VERs).  They are managed through our account on the IHS Markit Registry, and are issued by the Plan Vivo Foundation based on the performance of individual projects around the world. We have over 20 projects customers can buy offsets from through C Level.

You can use any of our suite of online carbon calculators and balancing tools to offset your footprint – by planting a number of trees, offsetting your flights or you can simply purchase enough carbon offsets to carbon balance your whole business.

You can also purchase directly from the individual project pages.

Our Balance API and Carbon Hub is abother way to manage your carbon footprint and offset purchases. We can provide bespoke solutions so get in touch.