(7 February 2025 – Australia) Several major Australian corporates have quit a federal scheme that allows them to claim net-zero carbon emissions amid rising integrity concerns.
After allocating significant resources in the past ten years acquiring offsets in the voluntary market to reduce their climate footprint, Australian corporations and superannuation funds including Australia Post, CBUS, Canva, Telstra, . NRMA, Canva PwC and even the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) have raised concerns about whether the projects generating those offsets genuinely reduce greenhouse gases, The Age reports.
Departing enterprises refer to growing global scepticism over the quality of Australian and international carbon abatement certificates while others say they now prefer to focus on directly reducing their own emissions rather than buying offsets.
“Too many own goals in this sector – buying carbon credits is no longer a sound investment partly due to public scepticism about greenwashing. Dodgy projects and methods have increased the degree of difficulty on trust. When I buy a pound of coffee beans or a barrel of oil, I know what I’m getting. By contrast, a carbon credit represents a certified belief that some ‘thing’ has been done successfully to abate emissions. Neither the cause nor the effect can be readily understood. The whole equation collapses without trust that the ‘thing’ occurred” commented former Telstra Head of Energy and Climate Ben Burge, who left the company in September.