FAQs – Carbon Offsets

Beyond Neutral’s Carbon Shop is the easiest way to buy carbon offsets

• All you need to know is how many tonnes you want
• Explore the projects we have on offer, search key sustainability outcomes, select the tonnes you want to buy from one or more projects, write your own retirement message and pay online

If you need a formal quote, contact us

To purchase offsets through our Carbon Shop

1. Go to Carbon Shop

2. Explore the projects

On left side of shop page you can search by

• product categories or
• Sustainability Beyond Carbon tags

Quick Links are in the center top of page – projects are grouped based on

• our 3 themes (Renewables | People | Forests)
• Standards (VCS, GS, VCS+CCB)
• Project types

Scroll down the page to see all projects on offer, sorted by price per tonne

Click on a project to access detailed information

• All information included in our standard formal quote is available
• All the usual info – project number, type, location, Standard, vintage
• Explanation of the project and how it contributes to Sustainability Beyond Carbon
• Direct link to each project’s design, monitoring, validation and verification reports is available under project’s entry in Current Stock

3. Add to Cart

• Select tonnes and add project to cart
• Buy 1 or more projects
• Buy from 1 tonne

4. Checkout

• Billing details
  • add these
• Retirement Information
  • add retirement info incl name, reason and message (happy to help draft message – just let me know when completing this section)
  • agree to public listing of retirement in Registry
• Payment
  • Payment by credit card

5. Retirement

• After payment is received, offsets are retired (retirement message is confirmed if unclear or requested)
• Once retired, all the usual material is provided (Registry email, signed Beyond Neutral Statement of Carbon Offset Retirement, links to retirement entry in Registry)
• Offsets are retired under your name shortly after purchase (often same day), with serial numbers unique to you
• No generic, grouped block retirements where offsets purchased by different companies/ people are retired as a block in a single retirement on a Registry
• Retirement message tailored specifically to you
• Documentation and retirement message meet Climate Active requirements
• No hidden costs – quoted carbon price covers individualised retirement process and includes your own retirement certificate

No is the simple answer

If you are not actively seeking carbon neutral status under Australia’s Climate Active but are looking to be carbon neutral, then both Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) carbon offsets are high integrity and internationally accepted

Are you seeking to be accredited carbon neutral under Climate Active?

In 2023, the Independent Review of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) considered the requirement to use ACCUs under Climate Active

• It had been announced previously that by 2024 you would need to use ACCUs for 20% of the total carbon offsets needed to achieve Climate Active carbon neutral certification
• The Independent Review recommended this requirement not be implemented and the Australian Government has agreed

As a result, Climate Active participants do not have to use ACCUs (Climate Active’s announcement)

Under Climate Active’s Carbon Neutral Standard, eligible carbon offsets include both Gold Standard and VCS (for instance, see page 47 of the Climate Active Carbon Neutral Standard for Organisations)

• According to a 2022 report from Australia’s Climate Change Authority, 95% of the carbon offsets ever used under Australia’s voluntary Climate Active program are international units which include those from Gold Standard and VCS

Of course, yes

One of the reasons for developing our Carbon Shop and stocking it with over 30 projects spread across the 3 themes of Renewables | People | Forests is to offer variety in terms of project type, location and sustainability co-benefits

Renewables – Access to Electricity

Nearly 800 million people do not have access to electricity while billions more live in areas where demand outstrips supply, leading to “brown-outs” and black-outs

These lower cost options don’t involve a trade-off in quality – price differences reflect project complexity, not status

People – Improving Living Conditions

Firewood, charcoal, coal and other polluting fuels are needed each day by 2.6 billion people for cooking food and/or boiling drinking water, while 2.2 billion people don’t have access to safe water

Fuelwood, charcoal extracted from surrounding forest or coal is inefficiently burnt in traditional stoves (often 3 stones), creating smoke and using a lot of biomass fuel

These projects are household-scale, reduce indoor air pollution and particularly benefit women and children

Forests – Protecting Biodiversity, Supporting Community

All the offered forest-based projects are VCS+CCB (Verified Carbon Standard with additional accreditation under the Climate, Community, Biodiversity Standards

These projects reduce emissions, empower communities and support biodiversity

They are located where deforestation and/or forest degradation is actively occurring and where it is expected to severely impact the standing forest into the future

Our carbon offsets are generated based on verified outcomes achieved, not on projections

You can choose one or more projects that are a “best fit” for you

Choose projects located around the world throughout the Global South.  Current locations include

• Africa: Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo), Kenya, Malawi & Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Zimbabwe
• Asia: Cambodia, China, Indonesia, India, Türkiye
• South America: Brazil, Peru

Select the technology you like

• solar PV, wind, run-of-river hydro
• solar cookers, household biogas, safe water supplies, improved cookstoves
• projects that act to stop forest destruction (REDD+)

Explore the sustainability co-benefits you want to support, like

• employment
• health
• education
• food security
• clean water
• clean air
• biodiversity
• community
• land tenure, and many more

A mix of projects helps balance costs and tonnes, while widening the sustainability co-benefits achieved

Yes, you can purchase carbon offsets from one or more projects without penalty

Our Carbon Shop makes buying from one project is simple; the process for buying from multiple projects is equally easy, though you do have to choose more projects

A single project lets you focus your support to a particular project and its sustainability co-benefits

Multiple projects can give you access a wider range of sustainability benefits

A mix of projects helps balance costs and tonnes while widening the sustainability beyond carbon achieved

If purchasing through our Carbon Shop, the process of selecting and paying for your offsets is easy and what you would expect from e-commerce

We offer payments through Stripe and PayPal

We offer pricing in 9 currencies

If your purchase is larger, more complex or you want a more personalised service, contact us

The usual process would then be:

• we provide you with a formal quote, from which you choose the project(s) and volume(s) you want
• once the project, vintage, tonnes and price are agreed, we invoice you with details of our bank account
• subsequently, we retire the offsets (tonnes) you have purchased

Short answer, yes

The offsets Beyond Neutral sells represent real, measurable, additional and permanent emission reductions conservatively estimated and independently verified.  The uniquely numbered units are tracked from issuance to retirement and transparently listed in a Registry that is viewable to the public

Any offset you buy from Beyond Neutral

• has been created by a project that follows a specific methodology
• has its project’s documentation, including Project Design, Monitoring, Validation and Verification Reports publicly available
• has been verified as having occurred by the Standard’s third-party verification bodies

Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Gold Standard carbon offsets

These meet your quality, integrity criteria and are the two highest ranked voluntary carbon market Standards, as determined in 2022 by the Australian Government’s Climate Change Authority

Both Standards scored ~90% for Integrity, Principles and Governance

They demonstrate high overall quantitative integrity; across 14 principles (focused on abatement integrity and sustainability beyond carbon) and 9 governance criteria for effective implementation of principles (Climate Change Authority, 2022: 71)

Both Gold Standard and VCS accreditation processes specifically address additionality, permanence, leakage, monitoring and verification

For a project to be accredited, it needs to meet all of the accrediting Standards’ requirements

Both types of offsets are verified by third parties

Each project’s Design, Monitoring, Validation and Verification reports are publicly available – we include a link to these documents for each of the projects in our Current Stock

For Australian entities wanting Climate Active eligible offsets, all of the offsets sold through Beyond Neutral’s Carbon Shop are eligible Climate Active units

The price per tonne for any particular project is impacted by a range of factors including the costs that a project incurs to create the carbon unit

Different technologies, locations as well as vintage and Standard all impact the price

Lower cost options don’t involve a trade-off in quality – price differences reflect project complexity, not status

Generally, offsets from REDD+ projects are more expensive than those from renewable energy projects, with people-scale projects in-between

Short answer – not from Beyond Neutral

Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Gold Standard carbon offsets supplied by Beyond Neutral are for emission reductions that have been verified as having occurred during a specified period (the vintage)

The carbon offsets we sell are not for future abatement based on projections or plans

You can be reassured that the offsets you purchase from Beyond Neutral have been credited from a real, verified emission reduction, not a promise to do something into the future

In summary, no

Whatever your carbon footprint is, simply round it up to the next full tonne

• For example, to offset the average Australian footprint of 18.88 tCO2e means you would buy 19 tonnes
• You can also go past neutral and become an active part of the solution

Each Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Gold Standard carbon credit represents 1 tonne of CO2e

Each credit is issued with a unique serial number that is extinguished when the carbon offset is retired, never to be used again

We do not sell part tonnes so the carbon credits you buy are yours alone, with no chance of double or dodgy accounting

Offset your emissions with verified climate action in 5 steps:

1. How many tonnes do you want to offset?
2. Do you want extra climate and/or sustainability benefits with your tonnes?
3. Choose the project(s) you like from our Current Stock
4. Buy your offsets in our Carbon Shop
5. Retire your offsets – we do this for you individually, with detailed documentation provided by us and the Registry

More information on how to offset your emissions is available in our guide How to Offset Your Emissions

During our Carbon Shop’s checkout process, you will asked about the retirement name, reason and message

Shortly after purchase, your tonnes will be permanently retired on your behalf by Beyond Neutral in the appropriate Registry (VCS or Gold Standard)

Shortly after retirement, you will receive clear, verifiable evidence of the retirement including the quantity and serial numbers of the offsets retired, the date and time of retirement, the offset project’s details, who retired the offsets and on whose behalf

Once retired, the offsets can be netted out against your emissions

What we offer (beyond projects and tonnes) when retiring your offsets:

• Offsets retired under your name shortly after purchase (often same day), with serial numbers unique to you
• No generic, grouped block retirements where offsets purchased by different companies/ people are retired as a block in a single retirement on a Registry
• Retirement message tailored specifically to you
• Documentation and retirement message meet Climate Active requirements
• No hidden costs – quoted carbon price covers individualised retirement process including retirement certificate

Simple answer, no

Every Gold Standard or VCS carbon offset unit (VER or VCU, respectively) is issued with a unique serial number by the Standard’s Registry

This serial number enables that Registry to track the carbon unit from its issuance to its retirement

An offset can only be “retired” once as the serial number is unable to be used again

As such, VCS and Gold Standard offsets are never double-counted or retired more than once

We provide ample, verifiable evidence of the retirement of your carbon units

When your offsets are retired, we include the retirement name (who retired them), reason (e.g. Climate Active) and a retirement message about why you retired them

We provide you with Beyond Neutral’s SCOR (Statement of Carbon Offset Retirement) which provides all the details about the retirement

You will also receive an email from the offset Registry confirming the retirement details

The Registry provides a link to the listing and we provide directions on how to find the public-facing entry via the Registry website

We recommend Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) offsets as they provide transparency within their Registries

Both Registries always list key aspects of all retirements on their respective websites, Verra VCS Project Database, Gold Standard Impact Registry™

Details always listed include the retirement date, project details, quantity, vintage and serial numbers

As each retirement is publicly viewable on the Registry’s website, you can go to it anytime and view your retirement (you can do the same for all the other retirements that have occurred

Our default option for any retirements is for the retirement name, reason and message to also be publicly viewable – you have the opportunity to add these details during our Carbon Shop’s checkout process

Public listing of all details is mandatory for Climate Active participants

Beyond Neutral sells VCS or Gold Standard carbon offsets – we don’t create the offsets that we sell – we are not a project developer

We offer you carbon offsets from a wide range of sources including direct from project developers, as well as through the wholesale and spot carbon markets

As an account holder with both Gold Standard’s Impact Registry and Verra’s VCS Registry, we handle all aspects of the sourcing, sale and retirement of your carbon offsets through the appropriate Registry

Beyond Neutral’s Carbon Shop streamlines the buying and retiring of your carbon offsets.  Explore the projects we have on offer, search key sustainability outcomes, select the tonnes you want to buy from one or more projects, write your own retirement message and pay online

Contact us if a formal quote is required or if you are looking for larger tonnages or something specific (e.g. a particular country, project type or sustainability co-benefit)

Beyond Neutral only sells carbon offsets from the voluntary carbon market (VCM).

We sell carbon units from projects accredited under the VCM’s two foremost Standards

• Verified Carbon Standard (VCS)
• Gold Standard

For forest-based VCS projects, an additional certification is available:

• Climate, Community, Biodiversity (CCB) Standards

All carbon offsets sold by Beyond Neutral are eligible carbon offsets under Australia’s Climate Active Carbon Neutral Standard

In accordance with our support for the VCM, we don’t sell carbon units from any compliance market (CERs, EUAs or ACCUs).  We don’t sell ACCUs as these are financial products

We group the carbon offsets we sell into 3 themes: Renewables | People | Forests

Renewables – highly cost competitive renewable energy projects using wind, solar PV and other renewable energy sources

People – projects acting to improve the living conditions at the household-scale for some of the world’s poorest people, particularly women and children

Forests – action to stop forest loss on the deforestation frontier, protect biodiversity and support community

Renewables – Access to Electricity
Nearly 800 million people do not have access to electricity while billions more live in areas where demand outstrips supply, leading to “brown-outs” and black-outs

Without carbon finance, Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Gold Standard projects would not have proceeded

These lower cost options don’t involve a trade-off in quality – price differences reflect project complexity, not status

People – Improving Living Conditions
Firewood, charcoal, coal and other polluting fuels are needed each day by 2.6 billion people for cooking food and/or boiling drinking water, while 2.2 billion people don’t have access to safe water

Fuelwood, charcoal extracted from surrounding forest or coal is inefficiently burnt in traditional stoves (often 3 stones), creating smoke and using a lot of biomass or fossil fuel

The VCS and Gold Standard projects offered are household-scale, reduce indoor air pollution and particularly benefit women and children

Forests – Protecting Biodiversity, Supporting Community
All the offered forest-based projects are VCS with additional accreditation under the Climate, Community, Biodiversity (CCB) Standards

These projects reduce emissions, empower communities and support biodiversity

They are located where deforestation and/or forest degradation is actively occurring and where it is expected to severely impact the standing forest into the future

Yes, all of the carbon offsets sold in our Carbon Shop are Climate Active eligible

Climate Active has a list of eligible carbon offsets that can be used under its carbon neutral certification scheme

Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Gold Standard carbon units (VCUs and VERs respectively) are eligible, especially those from global south

All carbon units have to have a vintage of 2013+ (i.e. climate actions verified as having occurred from 2013 to today)

We stock VCS and Gold Standard carbon units from Africa, Asia and South America, all with vintages of 2013+

We do when we can get them

Beyond Neutral only sells Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Gold Standard carbon offsets

Australian VCS Projects

There are no VCS infrastructure-scale renewable energy projects in Australia due to the existing mandatory Renewable Energy Target (projects aren’t “additional” as the RET is mandated by the Australian Government)

Anyone can access project information by searching the VCUs tab on the Verra VCS Registry’s website

As of mid 2023, three Australian VCS projects have active units (issued but not yet retired) listed on the VCS Registry which meet Climate Active’s vintage requirements

Contact us if you would like us to approach these projects on your behalf

There are two other nature-based VCS projects that are listed as “under validation”  – as such no carbon units have been issued to them as yet

Australian Gold Standard Projects

The one Australian Gold Standard project (GS 3039) is a reforestation project which, at the moment, we unfortunately do not have any offsets from

As with VCS, there are no Australian Gold Standard renewable energy projects in Australia due to the RET

Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs)

We do not sell Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs)

• ACCUs are financial products created for use by the compliance market created by the Australian Government
• While they can be used to meet voluntary commitments (e.g. Climate Active or carbon neutral claims), they remain financial products

Short answer, no

The carbon offsets sold by Beyond Neutral are not financial products, we don’t provide investment advice or offer the option of investing into carbon offset projects in order to get a return from your investment

If you have an Registry account with either the Verra VCS Registry or the Gold Standard Impact Registry, after buying the carbon units we can arrange for them to be transferred into your Registry account – after which, you own them and can do with them as you choose

If you don’t have a Registry account (most don’t), you can purchase any amount of carbon offsets you want from us and we will retire these for you – once retired you can use and claim them as an offset against your emissions

The easiest way to buy carbon offsets is to buy them through our Carbon Shop.  We are excited to offer you an e-commerce solution that makes buying your offsets simple.  Buy and retire Gold Standard or VCS carbon offsets online.  We also still offer a formal quote process if you would prefer

One way to think of the carbon offsets we sell is as “goods” or “commodities” that you purchase and “consume” (by retiring them).  Their “return” is helping address climate change and all the sustainability beyond carbon features that they offer

We are not a charity so no, this is not a donation

We are an Australian company selling global solutions to a global problem – as a company we are attempting to make acting on climate change in a quantifiable way as easy as possible

You are buying verified tonnes of CO2e that are not adding to climate change – you are not donating money to help us to do something

Each tonne of climate action has a serial number and sustainability benefits built in

The carbon offsets are yours once you buy them:

• we will retire them on your behalf but you are the owner of the retirement, with a certificate to prove it
• if you have an account with the offsets’ Registry, we will happily transfer them to you – you will then have those tonnes in your own Registry account
• we don’t hold the credits on your behalf – they are not an investment to generate a return (other than climate and sustainability benefits)

You can only hold carbon offsets in a Registry account with Gold Standard or Verified Carbon Standard

You would need to open an account with the appropriate Registry that issues the type of carbon unit (VCS VCUs or GS VERs) you want to own

There is an annual cost to have a Registry account

Once you have an account, you can have any offsets you purchase transferred into your Registry account

You would then own the carbon units, holding them in your account and being able to retire them in whatever amounts you wanted to over time

Once set up, you would not have to “bank” retired offsets with Climate Active but could retire them as you needed each year.

Beyond Neutral doesn’t hold units in its Registry accounts for clients – all units purchased are either retired or transferred to your own Registry Account

The Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) is where projects voluntarily create carbon units which are sold into the market to generate the carbon finance which helps make the project viable.  The units are traded and will ultimately be retired by anyone who wishes to offset their emissions.

The VCM is not a part of the compliance carbon markets that have been set up by Governments within their own jurisdiction

Representing a desire to do something about climate change without being compelled to do so, it empowers people to act on climate change without having to wait for government

It enables you to buy real emission reductions that have been verified as having occurred from projects that have been undertaken voluntarily, using the carbon revenues to achieve action on climate change and sustainability beyond business-as-usual

The best units meet key criteria:

• real, measurable and conservatively estimated
• additional, permanent and address leakage
• published project design methodologies, monitoring and validation processes
• independently verified, uniquely numbered, Registry tracked units
• transparent Registry listings, publicly viewable documents, active units and retirements

Beyond Neutral only sells Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) or Gold Standard carbon offsets – they meet all these key criteria

They are the two highest ranked VCM Standards, as determined in 2022 by the Australian Government’s Climate Change Authority – both Standards scored ~90% for Integrity, Principles and Governance

All of the carbon offsets offered by Beyond Neutral represent real, measurable, additional and permanent emission reductions conservatively estimated and independently verified.  The uniquely numbered units are tracked from issuance to retirement and transparently listed in a Registry that is viewable to the public

Features of the Voluntary Carbon Market we consider to be important include:

• Carbon offsets are from projects accredited using Standards that apply equally across the world
• Emissions abatement (doesn’t matter whether it is avoidance or removals, reductions or draw-down) is independently verified against one of these international Standards
• Buyers, sellers and project developers choose to participate in the market, based on their own requirements
• Buyers are free to choose which Standard they source their emission reductions out of
• The market does not have any entity setting how many offsets are created each year
• There are no “free” offsets/ allowances that skew the market
• The carbon units are for verified emission reductions that have occurred

The VCM’s carbon price is set by the market reflecting the forces of supply and demand:

• An oversupply of offsets leads to lower prices; under-supply causes prices to rise
• Increased demand typically takes up the cheapest offsets or a particular project type (e.g. REDD+)
• Rapid increases in demand can lead to increased prices, especially once surplus carbon units are taken up
• Sustained higher demand provides signal to project developers to increase supply
• Increased offset prices help projects’ viability due to the increased flow of carbon finance
• This improved viability helps increase project numbers leading to increased supply
• If demand falls (due to war, economic uncertainty, etc), this cascades through the market

We use carbon offset to refer to the carbon units created (issued) by either the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) or Gold Standard registries

VCU – Verified Carbon Unit – VCS carbon unit

VER – Verified Emission Reduction – Gold Standard carbon unit

Some refer to these units as carbon credits which are used to offset emissions.  Others consider carbon credits to be created in compliance carbon markets while carbon offsets are created by the VCM

No matter what they are called, in the end these carbon units are all tonnes of CO2e which are not driving climate change

Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Gold Standard carbon offsets create a link between your climate response and improved sustainability

There is an overwhelming need to rapidly and significantly improve the sustainability of development worldwide while addressing the urgent and growing need to stop climate change

Sustainability co-benefits beyond carbon are those additional benefits to individuals, local communities and threatened habitats that arise from carbon offset projects

These benefits cover the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and can include the building of schools and medical facilities, the protection of IUCN Red List species and their ecosystems, improved health and opportunities for women and children, employment, economic activities, land tenure etc.

The impacts of the sustainability co-benefits often equal or exceed those of the carbon reduction activity

If you want carbon offsets that offer more than just carbon reductions, Beyond Neutral offers a range of sustainability outcomes from exciting and inspiring projects

Each carbon offset methodology has a different way of calculating the emission reductions underpinning the carbon offset – specific methodologies are used to develop, assess and verify different types of projects

Renewables – a typical renewable energy project measures its electricity production and applies an approved emission factor for the electricity grid it is connected to

People – safe water, cookstove, solar cooker and household biogas projects are based on the number of units distributed and used, with an emission factor applied to each unit

Forests – REDD+ projects are complex in their calculations, which is as it should be as they are a multi-faceted response to landscape carbon losses.  Some of the myriad of things done in establishing how many carbon offsets a REDD+ project creates include:

• calculate the carbon held by the existing forest
• examine deforestation rates
• adjust for leakage (carbon lost from other areas because it was stopped in the project area)
• convert the tonnes of carbon not lost from the forest into tonnes of CO2-e

Each project listed under Current Stock on the main website and available for sale through our Carbon Shop has a direct link to its design, monitoring, validation and verification reports – we welcome you examining these to understand the methodology used to calculate the carbon offsets from projects you are interested in

For VCS, all projects must be validated, and all emission reductions must be verified by approved validation/verification bodies.  Entities in good standing under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism and California’s Climate Action Reserve are approved to work under the VCS Program (quote from VCS).

For Gold Standard, the claimed amount is verified by a “UNFCCC-accredited Designated Operational Entity (DOE) confirming the amount of reductions achieved by a project during a specified time period” (quote from Gold Standard).

All VCS and Gold Standard offsets are for actual, real emission abatement, verified by independent third parties as having occurred

All projects are monitored, validated and emission reductions verified against the approved methodology as used by the project during its design.

Offsets are provided with a vintage which reflects the year that the abatement has been verified as occurring

Any offset you buy from Beyond Neutral:

• has been created by a project that follows a specific methodology
• has its project’s documentation, including Project Design, Monitoring, Validation and Verification Reports publicly available
• has been verified as having occurred by the Standard’s third-party verification bodies

Carbon offsets sold by Beyond Neutral are verified as having occurred in a particular year (the vintage)

We don’t sell promises to do something in the future

Future tree-planting or landscape regeneration projects are promising that over time they will reduce emissions equivalent to what you have paid for today

There is a need to be careful when contributing to a climate project that can’t transparently verify what it has achieved – for instance, not all tree plantings meet the strict thresholds required in order to create carbon offsets that you can use to get to carbon neutral, and beyond

Future, promised, expected emission reductions can’t be used to make carbon neutral claims for current or historical emissions, especially if you are a business

VCS and Gold Standard carbon offsets are for real, measured and verified emission reductions which have occurred – this is why you can use them for carbon neutral claims and programs like Climate Active

Transparency is a key consideration for any project claiming to do something on climate change

Every Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Gold Standard project on sale in our Carbon Shop has a link to its design, monitoring, validation and verification reports included in its Current Stock entry on our main website, helping support a project’s claims of quality and credibility

All of the VCS or Gold Standard carbon offsets offered by Beyond Neutral represent real, measurable, additional and permanent emission reductions which address leakage , are conservatively estimated and independently verified

Each tonne is uniquely numbered, tracked from issuance to retirement and transparently listed in a Registry viewable to the public

Forest regeneration-type actions when quantified into carbon offsets enables the climate impact of these actions to be easily identified and contributed to

When you buy a carbon offset, you are buying quantified, verified climate impacts that are equivalent no matter the location or project type

To make non-offset tree planting equivalent to VCS or Gold Standard carbon offsets from reforestation, the same criteria need to be evident (real, additional, permanent, leakage, conservative claims, measurable, verified, tracked)

To apply the same standards to existing and future regeneration projects (pay/ donate now and trees will be planted into the future), they should be able to provide metrics that they use to back up their claims.  Hopefully once the trees have grown, these metrics are measured and verified with any shortfalls are resolved and reported in a transparent way

Gold Standard is an internationally recognized high quality carbon offset accreditation program requiring projects to incorporate sustainable development requirements while creating credible Verified Emission Reductions (VERs)

Projects are developed with gender-sensitive and inclusive stakeholder design, environmental and social safeguards, and a contribution towards at least three Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

WWF and other international NGOs established Gold Standard in 2003

Gold Standard ensures carbon offset projects feature the highest levels of environmental integrity as well as contributing to sustainable development

VERs are tracked from issuance to retirement using a unique serial number, providing a chain of custody

Gold Standard VERs are real, additional, permanent, independently verified, unique and traceable

Gold Standard has calculated the shared value that is created by each carbon offset for some of its project types

According to their calculations, for each carbon offset (we sell all of these types of project)

• Biogas creates US$465 of shared value
• Cookstoves creates US$267 of shared value
• Safe Water creates US$183 of shared value

You can buy carbon units from Gold Standard projects that span the 3 carbon offset themes we sell – Renewables | People | Forests

The CCB Standards are the leading standard used in conjunction with VCS agriculture, forestry and land use projects

By buying CCB Standards project and business or individual demonstrates contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals through verified project reporting

Can join in the support of certified conservation areas that are part of zero deforestation commitments.

Projects that meet the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards help an individual or business offset their carbon footprint all while actively helping local communities and endangered plants and animals

We sell carbon offsets from projects that span the 3 carbon offset themes: Renewable | People | Forests

Renewables – Access to Electricity

• Nearly 800 million people do not have access to electricity while billions more live in areas where demand outstrips supply, leading to “brown-outs” and black-outs
• These lower cost options don’t involve a trade-off in quality – price differences reflect project complexity, not status

People – Improving Living Conditions

• Firewood, charcoal, coal and other polluting fuels are needed each day by 2.6 billion people for cooking food and/or boiling drinking water, while 2.2 billion people don’t have access to safe water
• Fuelwood, charcoal extracted from surrounding forest or coal is inefficiently burnt in traditional stoves (often 3 stones), creating smoke and using a lot of biomass fuel
• These projects are household-scale, reduce indoor air pollution and particularly benefit women and children

Forests – Protecting Biodiversity, Supporting Community

• All the offered forest-based projects are VCS+CCB (Verified Carbon Standard with additional accreditation under the Climate, Community, Biodiversity Standards
• These projects reduce emissions, empower communities and support biodiversity
• They are located where deforestation and/or forest degradation is actively occurring and where it is expected to severely impact the standing forest into the future

Our carbon offsets are generated based on verified outcomes achieved, not on projections

The project types on offer through our Carbon Shop are:

• Wind
• Solar PV
• Run-of River Hydro-electrivity
• Solar Cookers
• Household Bio-gas
• Improved Cookstoves
• Safe Water (filtration)
• Safe Water (borehole rehabilitation)
• REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation)

We also have access to carbon offsets from biomass energy, blue carbon, reforestation, landfill gas recovery and energy efficiency – contact us if you are interested in these alternatives

When you consider the impact on sustainable development achieved by VCS and Gold Standard carbon offset projects in the global south, combine that with the wide variety of project types and locations and add in the typically lower cost per tonne of their verified emission reductions, it is hard not to see these carbon offsets as the best option

Buying Gold Standard and/or VCS carbon offsets makes it easier in today’s economy to go beyond just neutral or to have an impact beyond just carbon, helping the world’s poor and its threatened habitats

The carbon offset that is “best” will depend on what you are looking for, with price differences reflecting project complexity, not status or “quality”

Renewables projects are infrastructure-scale renewable energy projects (run-of-river hydro, solar PV, wind, biomass) that are best in terms of price per tonne while providing electricity in areas where demand outstrips supply, leading to “brown-outs” and black-outs

People projects are household-scale carbon offsets projects (household biogas, solar cookers, safe water and cookstoves) that are best for improving the living conditions of the global poor, helping reduce indoor air pollution which particularly benefits women and children

Forests projects (e.g. REDD+) which reduce emissions, empower communities and support biodiversity are best for biodiversity and habitat protection as they are located where deforestation and/or forest degradation is actively occurring and where it is expected to severely impact the standing forest into the future

This is a false dichotomy – we need to do everything to avoid emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and at the same time pull emissions out of the atmosphere

“Avoidance”

Projects that prevent the addition of climate altering emissions to the atmosphere are categorised as avoidance and are the most common types of projects

Actions that avoid emissions include renewable energy of all types, energy efficiency and REDD+

renewable energy – each kWh of electricity generated by non-fossil fuels means one less kWh that causes an increase in global emissions

Renewable electricity generation includes wind turbines, solar PV, hydro-electricity, agricultural residue energy recovery (aka biomass energy), geothermal, wave, tidal, landfill gas

Renewable forms of heat include solar cookers, household bio-gas, use of Non-fossil

energy efficiency – improved lighting, industrial and commercial,

energy efficiency –

“Removals” projects draw down CO2 already in the atmosphere and store it in either biological or geological carbon storage

When you consider the impact on sustainable development achieved by VCS and Gold Standard carbon offset projects in the global south, combine that with the wide variety of project types and locations and add in the typically lower cost per tonne of their verified emission reductions, it is hard not to see these carbon offsets as the best option

Buying Gold Standard and/or VCS carbon offsets makes it easier in today’s economy to go beyond just neutral or to have an impact beyond just carbon, helping the world’s poor and its threatened habitats

The carbon offset that is “best” will depend on what you are looking for, with price differences reflecting project complexity, not status or “quality”

Renewables projects are infrastructure-scale renewable energy projects (run-of-river hydro, solar PV, wind, biomass) that are best in terms of price per tonne while providing electricity in areas where demand outstrips supply, leading to “brown-outs” and black-outs

People projects are household-scale carbon offsets projects (household biogas, solar cookers, safe water and cookstoves) that are best for improving the living conditions of the global poor, helping reduce indoor air pollution which particularly benefits women and children

Forests projects (e.g. REDD+) which reduce emissions, empower communities and support biodiversity are best for biodiversity and habitat protection as they are located where deforestation and/or forest degradation is actively occurring and where it is expected to severely impact the standing forest into the future

Choosing to generate your own renewable energy is awesome

If you can afford it/ are allowed to, placing solar PV panels on your roof is a great climate action

In Australia, rooftop solar PV is driving the penetration of renewable energy into the urban electricity grid without community resistance (people want to put them on their roofs).  It is changing energy use patterns and is making micro-grids using distributed, decentralised generation within existing built infrastructure possible (especially when supplemented by energy storage).  The question is why are Governments not putting more direct, active incentives and funding into this climate solution so as to maximise distributed energy production in our urban locations where the most energy use and users are – every roof should be generating electricity

Unfortunately for many, they can’t generate their own renewable energy

To use renewable energy, they purchase it from their energy retailer.  The retailer agrees to purchase as much renewable energy as you use or at some agreed proportion (10%, 50%, 100%, even 200%), not instantaneously but taken over some time period.  The electricity actually supplied to you is from the grid, into which connected electricity generators (fossil fuel and renewable) put their generation.  In Australia, the usual way to “consume” renewable energy (beyond generating it yourself) is to surrender Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs).  So, if you buy a renewable electricity product from a retailer you are using grid electricity and for each unit of electricity used, the equivalent RECs are used to offset your use of grid electricity

1 REC = 1 MWh (1000 kWh) of renewable energy

Renewable energy projects can also create carbon offsets, though not in Australia because of the mandated Renewable Energy Target – they can only generate RECs

Each carbon offset is 1 tonne of CO2e

To convert renewable energy generation into carbon offsets

Electricity produced by a renewable energy generator (MWh) is converted to the equivalent tonnes of CO2e based on the carbon intensity (tCO2e/ MWh) of the electricity system that it is connected to

MWh x tCO2e/MWh = tCO2e

An example

Today, Australia’s national electricity (scope 2) carbon intensity is 0.65 tCO2e/ MWh (Australian National Greenhouse Accounts Factors 2023, page 8)

If we assume that an Australian renewable energy project displaces “grid” electricity with the national carbon intensity, then for every MWh sent to the grid, 0.65 tonnes (650 kg) of CO2e is not released into the atmosphere

Demonstrating how the impact of renewable energy is changed due to the carbon intensity of the grid it operates in

• in 1994/95 Victoria, an Australian state whose primary electricity generation fuel was brown coal (lignite), had a scope 2 carbon intensity of 1.25 tCO2e/ MWh
• in 1994/95 Tasmania, an Australian state whose primary electricity generation was hydro-electricity using storage dams (as opposed to run-of-river), had a scope 2 carbon intensity of 0.02 tCO2/ MWh
• in 1994/95 both States operated separate electricity grids
• if a new renewable energy project had generated 1000 MWh that year in Victoria, the emissions displaced would have been 1250 tonnes, doing so in Tasmania would have displaced only 20 tonnes

Converting renewable energy into carbon offsets enables the climate impact of the action underpinning the carbon offset to be quantified

When you buy a carbon offset, you are buying quantified, verified climate impacts equivalent to 1 tonne of CO2e, no matter the location or project type

Of course, everything to do with energy supply and carbon offsetting is more complex and nuanced as would be expected but this is the gist of how renewable energy and carbon offsets are interchangeable in efforts to address climate altering emissions

Project locations are spread across three continents (Africa, Asia and South America), essentially the Global South

The projects are located in some of the poorest and most climate vulnerable places on Earth

These projects offer highly cost competitive renewable energy projects using wind or solar PV, or act to improve the living conditions for some of the world’s poorest people, or by acting to stop forest loss on the deforestation frontier, protect biodiversity and support community

At the moment, in our Carbon Shop you can select projects from:

• Senegal, Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi & Mozambique, Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo)
• Indonesia, Cambodia, India, China, Türkiye
• Brazil, Peru

The wider voluntary carbon market has projects spread across the world (except Antarctica) – we can source offsets from projects not listed in the carbon shop – contact us to discuss how we can help find what you are looking for

From the atmosphere’s perspective, the location of a carbon offset project is irrelevant.  A tonne of CO2e stopped from acting on the atmosphere by a project in Australia has the same effect on climate change as a project in Asia, Africa or South America

Looking beyond just carbon, the sustainability co-benefits that are created by projects in the global south are substantial and multi-faceted, helping the world’s poor and its threatened habitats

Beyond Neutral offers carbon offsets that draw on the carbon offset themes of Renewables | People | Forests

Renewables – Access to Electricity

Nearly 800 million people do not have access to electricity while billions more live in areas where demand outstrips supply, leading to “brown-outs” and black-outs

People – Improving Living Conditions

Firewood, charcoal, coal and other polluting fuels are needed each day by 2.6 billion people for cooking food and/or boiling drinking water, while 2.2 billion people don’t have access to safe water

Forests – Protecting Biodiversity, Supporting Community

Located where deforestation and/or forest degradation is actively occurring and where it is expected to severely impact the standing forest into the future

Let’s state this upfront – we would love to sell Australian carbon offsets

Beyond Neutral only sells carbon offsets from the two leading international Standards in the voluntary carbon market, Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Gold Standard

We do not sell ACCUs (Australian Carbon Credit Units) as these are financial products which are created out of the compliance market, even if they are allowed to be used in meeting voluntary commitments (e.g. Climate Active)

The following information is publicly available on the VCS Registry under the VCUs tab and can be accessed by anyone – transparency is a key feature and advantage of both VCS and Gold Standard

As of mid 2023, there are only 3 Australian projects that have active units (issued but not yet retired) listed on the VCS Registry which meet Climate Active vintage requirements

Contact us if you would like us to approach these projects on your behalf

There are two other VCS nature-based projects that are listed as “under validation”  – as such no units have been issued to them as yet

There are no VCS or Gold Standard infrastructure-scale renewable energy projects in Australia due to the existing Renewable Energy Target (projects aren’t “additional”)

There is one Australian Gold Standard project (GS 3039), a reforestation project which at the moment, unfortunately, we do not have any offsets from

No, because they are not additional

Before being accredited, Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Gold Standard projects need to prove that they are “additional” – essentially that the project is not viable without access to the carbon finance provided by the sale of carbon offsets

The Australian Government has a mandated Renewable Energy Target (RET) which creates a market and hence, a price for renewable energy certificates (RECs), meaning that renewable energy is factored into the cost of business as usual

As a consequence, when looking at the economics of a renewable energy project in Australia, the revenue from the sale of the “renewable” component of the electricity produced is factored in.  The sale of the RECs’ created by the project provides extra funds to the project over what they can get by selling the electricity into the grid

As such, Australia can’t create VCS or Gold Standard infrastructure-scale renewable energy projects for any technology covered by the RET (e.g. solar PV, wind) – even small-scale roof-top solar PV systems create a type of REC

You could theoretically get accreditation for solar cookers, household biogas or safe water in terms of additionality but when you look at the sustainability benefits that occur from these project types in the global south, doing these energy-based VCS and Gold Standard projects in Australia is unlikely to maximise sustainability beyond carbon while being relatively high cost per tonne

According to Gold Standard’s calculations, for each carbon offset (we sell all of these types of project)

• Biogas creates US$465 of shared value
• Cookstoves creates US$267 of shared value
• Safe Water creates US$183 of shared value

Vintage refers to the time period over which a project’s climate impact has been verified as having occurred

Carbon units (VCUs or VERs) are issued by the Standard’s Registry (Verified Carbon Standard or Gold Standard, respectively) only after a third party verifier/ auditor has examined the project’s records of activity (e.g. the generation of electricity from wind power) across a set period of time (e.g. if the reporting period is 1/1/2018 to 31/12/2018, then the vintage would be 2018)

• What you are buying when you buy the project’s 2018 vintage carbon offsets is the carbon dioxide that is not in the atmosphere because of the project’s activity in 2018

Vintage is useful for tracking the carbon units and is included in the serial number of each tonne

Older/earlier vintages (i.e 2013, as opposed to 2021) represent emissions that have been held out of the atmosphere for longer without being netted off against an entity’s/ individual’s emissions.  They are also from projects that were instigated at a time when climate action and the use of carbon offsets was not as normalised as today

Australia’s Climate Active requires carbon offsets with a vintage of 2013 or later to be used when participating in their carbon neutral certification scheme

All of the carbon offsets available through our Carbon Shop are eligible for use under Australia’s Climate Active, i.e. they all have a vintage of 2013 or later

Given the resources needed to actually visit a project, we suggest taking a virtual flyover using the satellite imagery on the VCS Registry’s entry for each VCS project

You can also use the coordinates provided in the Project’s Design Document and input these into a satellite viewer app that lets you input coordinates – this will give a larger view of the project and the area surrounding it.

Renewables projects show up well on satellite imagery so you can trace the run-of-river hydro’s watercourse, identify individual wind turbines and view solar PV installations

For Forests projects, you can view the landscape that is being protected by REDD+.  For instance, you can see the loss of rainforest in Kalimantan to oil palm plantations and looking at Brazil’s projects shows up the patchwork nature of deforestation and degradation across the Amazon

Unfortunately, People projects typically don’t show up on a satellite as these projects (household biogas, solar cookers, cookstoves and safe water) are household-scale

We use the virtual tour approach to check out the renewable energy and REDD+ projects we offer

Forest-based projects have higher upfront costs during their development and operation, for a variety of reasons, which impacts their price

Countering this are their massive sustainability co-benefits, significantly higher than most renewable energy projects

Reforestation projects increase the carbon stored in a landscape by planting and regenerating trees in areas where they have been lost in the past

REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) projects protect some of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems while supporting some of the world’s poorest communities

They are in countries where deforestation or forest degradation is occurring

“Deforestation” occurs for a range of reasons including illegal timber harvesting and mining, subsistence agriculture, migration pressure, conversion to agriculture, livestock grazing and infrastructure development like roads

“Degradation” is where forest biomass is reduced in a way that impacts on ecosystem functions

Many REDD+ projects have additional certification under the Climate, Community, Biodiversity (CCB) Standards

They also contribute to multiple Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) – some projects we sell contribute to almost all 17 SDGs

Nature-based carbon offsets are generated by

• sequestering carbon
  • extracting (removing) carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing carbon in the landscape, above and below ground
    • reforestation of historically cleared landscapes
    • improved soil carbon storage by agricultural landscapes
    • re/establishment of mangroves, sea grasses, kelp (blue carbon)
• avoiding/reducing emissions
  • preventing the release of stored carbon from the landscape due to ongoing clearing of forest (deforestation) or reduction of forest biomass (degradation)
  • REDD+/ avoided deforestation

Accredited projects meet the typical criteria such as additionality, permanence, being measurable and verifiable as well as utilizing risk management practices such as buffers and pooling to manage the risk of loss of credited carbon

Purchasing offsets from these projects provides funds for social equity, community and infrastructure development, protecting biodiversity, enabling maintenance of traditional customs and lifestyles and establishing a monetary value for the standing forest

By purchasing offsets from these very high value projects, your carbon offset purchase helps drive superior sustainability outcomes

Yes but it is early days

Blue carbon is an awesome concept of which currently there are only a tiny number of projects in the offset space

• As such, there are only small amounts of offsets available currently

Mangrove and seagrass protection/regeneration works like planting trees – they can take time to create verifiable emission reductions

Other types of marine based projects get funding/support using non-carbon offset pathways

• There are so many things needing to be done/fixed in and around the ocean!

These project types displace traditional fossil fuel energy generation

They are typically long-lived and carbon offsets are created through avoiding emissions

Purchasing these types of carbon offsets directly supports a country’s renewable energy industry’s development and helps increase renewable energy’s penetration into local electricity markets

By bringing or improving electricity supply to poor communities, they often lead to infrastructure improvements (roads, bridges, schools, medical facilities, etc), local employment and increased economic opportunities

Run-of-river hydro is electricity generation with minimal environmental impact using existing infrastructure with no reservoir

Solar Cooker projects provide large numbers of people cookers that use the sun instead of coal for cooking food and boiling water

These types of projects aim to reduce the use of fossil fuel derived energy and unsustainable fuelwood and charcoal (safe water and cook stoves)

AAC blocks are Autoclaved Aerated Concrete blocks which replace conventional clay bricks in construction

Autoclaving uses steam which is less energy intensive than thermal baking

Using a circular economy approach to reduce waste, many projects use agricultural residues as a fuel source, along with fly ash from power stations to replace virgin imputs

Safe water projects reduce forest degradation that is driven by the need to boil dirty water using firewood gathered from forests

They can replace firewood with a gravity water filtration system providing clean, safe water and significantly improving children’s health amongst other benefits

They also involve the rehabilitation of boreholes to provide access to clean water, sometimes in conjunction with solar PV pumping

Carbon offsets are created by reducing the energy consumed to operate equipment

• This avoided energy consumption does not create emissions which is then credited and used for carbon offsets

Both Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) have developed methodologies which address the accuracy and reliability of baseline measurement and energy use changes over time as well as the question of additionality