Carbon offset is a financial instrument aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The basic idea of carbon offsets is to figure out your personal or business GHG emissions, "carbon footprint” and balance GHG emissions with GHG reductions. Purchasing offsets is a convenient mechanism to balance your carbon footprint.

A “carbon offset” is an emission reduction credit, from another organization’s project, that results in less greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than would otherwise occur. Carbon offsets are measured in metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) and may represent six primary categories of greenhouse gases. By funding these reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, you balance, or offset, your own impact by an equivalent amount and your purchase funds additional GHG reductions projects.

Strategies

During the Document Review Phase, team leaders developed broad evaluative criteria to rank strategies by estimated implementation costs, greenhouse gas reductions, timing and feasibility.

Read the Business, Industry and Carbon Offset Opportunities section