More Companies Ditch Junk Carbon Offsets but New Buyers Loom
Corporate purchasers are moving away from projects rated ineffective by a watchdog even as dealmaking at the UN climate summit offers potential for a comeback.
A large portion of the carbon offset market is connected to renewable-energy projects with little climate benefit. Some corporate buyers are now turning away from these transactions.
Photographer: James MacDonald/BloombergDelta Airlines Inc. has for the past few years been among the biggest corporate buyers of carbon offsets. That demand — from airlines, energy companies, automakers and logistics firms — drove forecasts of a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years.
But after strong pushback from experts, Delta is now among a growing list of major companies that have ended purchases of these cheap credits. Alphabet Inc.’s Google and EasyJet Plc have recently joined in the rejection of what had been an enormously popular approach to sustainability. Many of these companies are now focused on the more expensive task of reducing their own emissions.