Author: Steve Zwick

Voluntary carbon offsets long ago ceased to be the exclusive province of a few pioneering companies and instead have become a training ground for entities that will one day face mandatory emission caps. Understandably, a slew of training manuals have emerged to help companies get it right, and this week the Ecosystem Marketplace examines Environmental Data Services' 2008

Guide to Carbon Offsets.

6 September 2008 | A handful of publications have come out this year evaluating the various voluntary carbon standards proliferating around the world – including our own State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2008 (published in conjunction with New Carbon Finance) and Offsetting Emissions: a Business Brief on the Voluntary Carbon Markets (published in conjunction with Business for Social Responsibility), as well as WWF's Making Sense of the Voluntary Carbon Market: A Comparison of Carbon Offset Standards.

These three publications offer a solid overview of the voluntary carbon markets and the debate over standards, but a growing number of corporate buyers are purchasing voluntary offsets through intermediaries – making the ENDS Guide to Carbon Offsets 2008 a valuable tool as well.

Published in April of this year, the Guide drew a flurry of attention for its ranking of what it considers to be the top 30 providers of voluntary carbon offsets worldwide (a list topped by MyClimate, Atmosfair, and Offset the Rest – based largely on their policy of offering voluntary offsets that conform to the Clean Development Mechanism's Gold Standard) as well as a directory of 170 offset providers.

The rankings evaluate providers according to standards recognized by compliance regimes, and not for their alternate role as a proving ground for new technologies and methodologies. The result is a numerical evaluation system that supporters of forestry offsets will find objectionable, with biological sequestration projects receiving little value compared to projects recognized under the CDM.

Such debate, however, accompanies all numerical rankings – whether the lists in question are of bond funds or baseball teams. The value in this publication (which, unlike the reports cited above, is not complimentary) comes not so much in the rankings themselves as in the analysis of the system ENDS developed for establishing the rankings and in the detailed analysis of each of the top 30 companies (although recent mergers have altered that landscape just a bit).

Here, the Guide offers clear insight into the difference between offsets and allowances, the debate over additionality, and the warning signs that all buyers should heed when selecting a provider – all in language that is simple enough for a complete novice to understand but detailed enough for an executive briefing.





Steve Zwick is managing editor of the Ecosystem Marketplace. He can be reached at SZwick@EcosystemMarketplace.com.

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