Reduce your impact on nature

How to measure your business' greenhouse gas emissions

These days all businesses should measure their greenhouse gas emissions and find ways to cut down. There are many service providers out there that can help you with this. However, our free, online Climate Action Toolbox makes this easy to do yourself. 

In addition to measuring your carbon footprint, the Toolbox helps you prioritise actions based on your businesses’ core activities and create a simple action plan. It also provides a wealth of information and tips to help you:

• Build climate action into your strategy
• Involve your people in climate action
• Communicate and market your success
• Prepare for climate change risks
• Know how climate action affects your finances

Carbon credits, and how to buy them

As part of your process, you can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions you can't yet cut by buying certified carbon offsets or credits. 

These are tradable tokens. Each one relates to one tonne of reduced, avoided, or removed carbon dioxide emissions, or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases like methane. This is expressed as one metric tonne of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent). 

Carbon credits are generated through projects that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, or those that avoid or reduce the emissions that would otherwise be released. 

Once a carbon credit is used to offset that tonne, it can't be used again. 

There are two types of market where the credits are used and traded:  

• The Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS) for organisations legally required to take part. 
• The Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) for anyone else wishing to buy credits. 

We’ll talk you through the VCM. 

There are many different voluntary credits available. They are generated by a wide range of activities. These can include:

• permanent forests - tree planting or conservation projects (removing emissions)
• renewable energy (avoiding emissions)
• energy efficiency (reducing emissions)

There are lots of new projects starting up to enter this market. Increasing carbon sequestration in soil. Ocean-based ‘blue carbon’ initiatives, like kelp planting. To qualify, they must meet certain criteria. This includes being transparent, permanent, measurable and verified, additional and not double counted. 

Many organisations offer carbon credits. You want to buy from those certified by a suitably qualified organisation with direct contact with the projects concerned. 

Look out for standards like the Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard and Plan Vivo. In addition, high quality standards-based carbon offsets are provided by a number of organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

You can buy these directly from organisations like Ekos, Toitū and Carbon Click. 

When available, they offer credits generated by projects in Aotearoa New Zealand involving the planting of indigenous or native plant species.

Be wary of any organisation offering carbon credits that are self-certified or do not meet the necessary standards. 

Making claims about carbon

It’s important to be transparent and accurate when making claims around greenhouse gas emissions. 

Claims like ‘carbon neutral’, ‘Zero Carbon’ or ‘carbon positive’ must verify enough certified carbon credit buying to match or exceed the emissions that were not otherwise eliminated. 

Similarly, only tree planting within projects verified to the VCM standards can be used to make such claims. Otherwise, they should not be referred to as “offsets”.  

Claims like this are increasingly being challenged, particularly in the UK and EU. There is concern they overstate the extent to which all the greenhouse gas emissions from a product or activity can be eliminated.

Do all nature regeneration projects create carbon credits?

Many environmental projects don’t currently generate credits. This includes most riparian planting, planting along waterways and wetland restoration. This work primarily selects plants for restoring the landscape, plants and animals, rather than absorbing greenhouse gas emissions. So although they still perform that function the exact amounts are rarely verified.

SBN’s current projects fall into this category. They're designed for ecological, economic, social and cultural regeneration, rather than carbon accreditation.  

Smaller projects are also unlikely to generate credits. They need to cover an area of at least a hectare to qualify. Organisations with smaller projects may also find the accreditation process too costly or time consuming.  

However, there are a growing number of offset providers supporting native biodiversity through their carbon programmes.

For example, Toitū's Climate Positive Certification. This involves offsetting all of the emissions from a product or activity AND contributing to other environmental or social causes.

These programmes provide an additional role for projects that would otherwise be outside of the schemes.