Many private individuals and companies want to contribute to climate protection. For a climate-conscious approach to greenhouse gas emissions, the hierarchy “first avoid – then reduce – only compensate the rest” serves as a clear guideline.

Offsetting unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions is the third best solution for climate protection. The idea behind offsetting is that it does not matter for the climate where emissions are emitted or avoided. This means that greenhouse gas emissions caused in one place can be saved in another place. Companies and private individuals can identify climate-impacting emissions and purchase emission certificates in the corresponding amount. For each certificate purchased with atmosfair, one tonne of greenhouse gas emissions has been saved in a climate protection project in the global South.

Integre offsetting under Paris

The Paris Climate Agreement poses new challenges for project operators and offset clients to ensure the integrity of offsets. Specifically, project operators and offset clients must take measures to prevent emission reductions achieved in climate protection projects from being counted twice.

Communication: Which claims are appropriate?

An important question for companies is how to communicate compensation with corresponding adjustments or project funding according to the contribution claim model in an effective and factually correct way. Only if corresponding adjustments are present can one speak of compensation. Contribution claims are not linked to compensation of emissions.

The quality of the projects matters

Regardless of whether companies opt for offsetting under the new framework conditions of the Paris Agreement or for the contribution claim model as an alternative to offsetting, their commitment to climate protection only makes sense if they support high-quality projects.

Verification and certification

We register projects that have passed our atmosfair internal eligibility check under the UNFCCC and Gold Standard, the leading climate protection standard in the voluntary market.