GOogle moving away from carbon credits - what does it mean?

What’s going on at Google?

There’s some news coming out of Google. You may have seen various articles headlined ‘Google ditches carbon offsets’, or, ‘Google is no longer claiming to be carbon neutral’.

These are articles covering the fact that Google is now moving away from using carbon offsetting by purchasing large amounts of carbon credits.

What are carbon credits?

In case you’re unsure of what carbon credits are, these can be bought by corporations to offset their emissions in order to call themselves carbon neutral. A carbon credit is a certificate which represents one tonne of carbon dioxide or a greenhouse gas equivalent, and they’re generated by projects that will either avoid carbon emissions, such as wind farm projects, or remove carbon from the atmosphere, such as reforestation.

Companies will buy however many of these credits that are required to offset the emissions produced from their operations. For a company like Google, this is likely to be quite a few, even with other efforts to reduce emissions.

What does Google moving away from carbon credits actually mean?

To summarise, Google is no longer supporting offsetting projects, but instead they’re looking to improve internal systems, and invest in carbon removal. This is not necessarily a good thing, and Google has recently reported a 50% jump in emissions due to the demands of Artificial Intelligence, so it might seem counter productive to move away from offsetting at this moment in time.

Google is now looking to focus on technologies for carbon removals, and if they work, these would be extremely important to reverse climate change. There are however some concerns over the efficiency of this technology, such as storage issues, and as it’s new tech, potentially some unforeseen problems which aren’t yet clear.

Is this a good thing?

It’s tough to know whether this change up at Google is a good thing, but is it still important? The answer is yes. This is because Google is a market driver which can be a passive role model to other companies. It’s important to note however, that there’s no single answer to a problem and therefore we need to still support high quality carbon reduction projects.

But why are we talking about this at 5D Net Zero?

Because we know the importance of reducing your business’ carbon emissions, and it’s essential to the global move of achieving net zero emissions. It’s important to add that, while offsetting shouldn’t be your first step in reducing business emissions, strategies such as supporting carbon projects and investing in future green technologies are essential to the global transition that’s needed.

Further to this, it’s no secret that big conglomerates such as Google are large polluters, and their actions will have a direct impact on humanity’s emission production, partly through the use of their services and their supply chain, both of which can impact our clients, and you personally. 

This isn’t us slamming Google at any rate. Their Net Zero roadmap has outlined their plan, and some proof of action. And we fully support their ambition to become net zero by 2030.

What do you think? Is this a win for the climate, or should Google continue its support of their existing carbon offsetting partnerships?

If you’d like to find out more about 5D Net Zero and how we can help your business reduce its carbon emissions, take a look at our website where one of our friendly team members is ready to have an initial conversation!

Source: https://w.media/google-ends-mass-purchase-of-carbon-offsets-aims-for-net-zero-emissions-by-2030/