Businesses with climate targets

If your business has set SBTi targets, you will need to make the transition to carbon removal credits by 2030.

By starting the process now, you can secure your business’ ability to meet your sustainability targets while leading the way for everyone else.

Even if your company hasn’t set SBTi targets, the interest from consumers and investors in sustainability will only continue to grow – as will potentially compliance requirements. Carbon removal credits are a tool for decarbonization that can pair with other carbon reduction efforts.

It’s important to reduce what you can and source high quality carbon credits to reach your climate goals.

There are a plethora of carbon removal technologies currently being developed or deployed in practice. Methods ranging from direct air capture (DAC) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) to afforestation and biochar all have unique characteristics in terms of cost, technology maturity, permanence and risk of reversal.

It’s important to have a 360-degree approach when setting your climate strategy and risks should always be investigated and addressed through a thorough due diligence process.

You should be mindful about methods that have a higher risk of reversal, less transparent measurement methods, or little proof of concept.

The Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), among others, explicitly encourages companies to not only reduce their own footprint but also invest in activities outside of their value chain in the transformation to net zero because of the urgent need to move the dial on climate change mitigation, today.

Carbon credits are a transparent, measurable and results-based way for companies to do so.

A quality carbon credit means one ton of carbon dioxide has been reduced or removed from the atmosphere. It also means that this reduction or removal has been certified under an internationally recognized carbon standard – such as Gold Standard.

There’s an increasing call for companies to – next to their own vigorous reduction efforts – invest in carbon removal credits to cover their unavoided emissions.

Complement your company’s drastic emissions reductions with neustark’s carbon dioxide removal (CDR) service.

While all types of carbon credits are important tools in helping to achieve a net zero future, the technical differences between carbon removal credits and other carbon credits are important to note.

Carbon avoidance projects contribute to climate action by preventing carbon that would have been released into the atmosphere. This could be building a wind farm to lower reliance on fossil fuels or preventing deforestation.

In buying carbon offsets, a company invests in reducing their emissions via an external project.

Carbon removal projects, as the name suggests, remove carbon from the atmosphere – thus creating negative emissions. Broadly speaking, they are split into 2 categories: natural carbon removals, like tree planting which sequesters carbon as the trees grow, and technological carbon removals, for example, point source CO₂ capture and storage via mineralization, like neustark does.

In investing in carbon removal credits, a company counterbalances their hard to abate emissions – in additional to own drastic emission reductions.

There are a number of reasons prices of carbon credits vary, for instance:

• the quality of carbon removal a company offers, including factors such as permanence, measurability and rapid delivery;
• varying implementation costs depending on the size and location of a project;
• similarly some types of technology are more expensive than others, though prices will be driven down by scaling up in the next years;
• carbon pricing regulations can affect prices in the voluntary carbon markets too;
• finally, prices are driven to a large extent by supply and demand.