Business group maintains offsetting key to global emissions reduction

Nine businesses, including Aviva, Sky, Fuji Xerox and DPD, have joined the UN’s Christiana Figueres to speak out about the benefits of offsetting carbon emissions, at this week’s climate negotiations in Paris.

In a new video , the companies explain why offset strategies are good business sense, the challenges and opportunities their approach has created, and why they believe it has made a difference. Companies throughout the world, including Microsoft, Jaguar Land Rover and Marks and Spencer have adopted carbon-offset approaches to enable them to go beyond the reduction targets they could achieve through internal change.

“We believe that now, more than ever, offsetting has a crucial role to play both for business success and for global greenhouse gas reduction targets,” explains Sophy Greenhalgh, Programme Director of the International Carbon Reduction Offset Alliance (ICROA) which produced the video. “We hope that by hearing about the business benefits of offsetting, others will be inspired to follow their leadership.”

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change calls for action now to ensure a secure, stable climate for the future. She also identifies offsetting as a vital part of the solution set to meet global emission reduction goals in the video.

“Offsetting is a valid way to reduce global carbon emissions quickly and cost effectively,” says Figueres.

Recent research from Carbon Disclosure Project Data shows that businesses which offset also take the lead in reducing carbon emissions as a whole with the typical offset buyer cutting almost 17% of their scope 1 direct emissions (compared to non offset buyers who reduced emissions by less than 5% in the same year).

Picture credit: © William Fehr | Dreamstime.com