Leading provider’s carbon offsets do not prevent deforestation

Carbon offsets from world leading provider Verra are ‘largely worthless’ and do not effectively prevent deforestation, a new investigation has found.  

Carried out by the Guardian, German newspaper Die Zeit and non-profit investigative journalism organisation SourceMaterial, the investigation revealed that over 90% of Verra’s rainforest offset credits do not result in real carbon reductions.  

Multiple big businesses, such as Disney, Gucci and easyJet, buy carbon offsets from Verra, allowing them to claim their products are ‘carbon neutral’ or unharmful to the planet.  

The carbon offsets market is growing and reached a value of $2 billion in 2021, but doubts have remained on the environmental impact of climate offsets projects which have been compounded by this report.  

Three studies which used satellite images to track the results of offsetting projects were analysed as part of the investigation.  

Two of these found that only eight out of 29 projects supported by Verra made a considerable impact on deforestation reduction, with further analysis by the investigative team finding that 94% of credits for the projects should not have been approved.  

Baseline forests loss scenarios have also been revealed to be hugely overstated by 400%, with all three pieces of research concluding that Verra’s projects are largely ineffective.  

Verra produced a lengthy statement in response, saying it is ‘disappointed’ by the claims and disputing the fact that it has over-issued carbon credits.  

The company said the studies do not accurately assess the impact of its projects, as they don’t consider ‘site-specific drivers of deforestation’ and rely on ‘synthetic controls that do not accurately represent the pre-project conditions.’  

Verra also said it was now re-assessing project baselines every six years to account for unpredictable local changes to deforestation and was working to transition all projects to one form of methodology to ‘ensure consistency in emission reductions within a set region.’  

However, Barbara Haya, Director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project told the Guardian that ‘the offset market is broken’, explaining that these issues are prevalent with every type of carbon credit.  

Photo by John Modaff