Bring Carbon

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.

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.

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.

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.