![]() Recent data shows that demand for offsets is falling, as are prices for future contracts, a commitment to buy offsets at a set price at a later date, as some companies rethink their reliance on them. But a mounting body of studies and investigative reports has found that these projects can dramatically exaggerate the climate benefits in a variety of ways, often amounting to little more than greenwashing. The basic promise of offsets is that individuals or organizations can balance out their own greenhouse gas pollution by paying others to grow trees, halt logging, or take other steps that may reduce emissions or pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. And the fact that it has taken such a strong stance on offsets marks another blow to battered carbon markets. Its commitment to replacing natural gas plants and other polluting infrastructure across the state highlights a model that other universities, organizations, and even cities could and should follow, says Holly Buck, an environmental social scientist at the University at Buffalo. ![]() ![]() The University of California is a huge and influential public research system encompassing three national labs and 10 campuses, including UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, and UCLA. On November 30, they will launch a website highlighting the array of problems they found, the strict standards they helped set for UC’s offset purchases, and the methods they developed for scrutinizing projects in voluntary carbon markets. Now the researchers are sharing the lessons they learned over the course of the project, in the hopes of helping other universities and organizations consider what role, if any, offsets should play in sustainability strategies, MIT Technology Review can report.
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