Sliced: Oxford Offsetting Principles
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For companies, organizations, governments, regions, and cities looking to engage in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) by purchasing carbon credits, more help has arrived.
Last week, the University of Oxford updated its original 2020 Oxford Offsetting Principles to a 2024 version – the Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting.
The revision comes at a time when other market enablers like the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI), and the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) have all made major announcements to their respective programs and objectives.
Just last week, SBTi released two new reports intended to support the design and implementation of beyond value chain mitigation (BVCM), encouraging companies to invest in climate mitigation actions beyond their own operations.
Then VCMI announced it is partnering with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to support developing countries, indigenous peoples, and local communities who wish to engage in carbon markets by focusing on both the supply and use of credible, high-integrity carbon credits.
Finally, in late January ICVCM revealed that it is now in the process of assessing over 100 active carbon credit methodologies for adherence to their high-integrity Core Carbon Principles (CCPs), which they aim to start announcing decisions by the end of March.
Back to Oxford.
The Oxford University team acknowledges that many entities currently have net zero climate strategies and that those entities intend to rely on carbon credits to offset their residual carbon emissions. Consequently, they have outlined four key principles essential for the proper approach to carbon offsetting.
The four principles are:
- Cut emissions, ensure the environmental integrity of credits used to achieve net zero, and regularly revise your offsetting strategy as best practice evolves
- Transition to carbon removal offsetting for any residual emissions by the global net zero target date
- Shift to removals with durable storage (low risk of reversal) to compensate for any residual emissions by the net zero target date
- Support the development of innovative and integrated approaches to achieving net zero
The 23-page document also provides a summary of key market terms and targets, a note that outlines the most significant updates to the guidelines, an executive summary that illustrates their four primary principles for market actors, and a breakdown of the types of projects that are currently generating carbon credits.
A significant observation from the Oxford Offsetting Principles is the emphasis on the use of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits over credits aimed at avoiding and reducing carbon emissions. This approach is one that we’ve seen becoming increasingly prevalent. Yet, within the VCM, merely 3% of the credits are exclusively from pure removal activities, while 7% are a combination of reduction and removal activities. Oxford acknowledges this by stating that “there is not enough high-quality carbon removal and storage available today to meet present or future demand” and that investment in CDR technologies should start promptly and escalate quickly to guarantee their availability on the scale necessary to achieve global net zero.
We warmly welcome the Oxford Offsetting Principles as an additional resource providing direction to participants in the VCM. We also concur that CDR credits are an essential instrument for achieving net zero emissions. Nevertheless, considering that 90% of the credits currently on the market are for reduction and avoidance, and advancements are being made in marking some of those credits with high-integrity ratings and approvals, we encourage potential buyers not to take these options off the table when implementing their strategies for addressing the hard-to-abate residual emissions inside their operations.
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