LONDON, June 28 (Reuters) - A standard to assess companies' claims about progress towards internal climate targets and their use of carbon offset credits was launched on Wednesday by a global initiative seeking to bring transparency and confidence to an unregulated market.
Many companies have set net zero emission targets but acknowledge they will need to buy or generate carbon credits to offset emissions they are unable to eliminate from their operations.
The Claims Code of Practice launched by the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI), backed by the British government, seeks to help investors establish whether claims made by companies using carbon offsets are credible.
“There was so much use and misuse, if not abuse of terms like carbon neutral, climate neutral, net zero, net zero aligned, net zero positive etc,” Kenber said in an interview.
These standards are expected by the end of the year and in the meantime, companies would be expected to use offsets meeting standards set under the under the global airline industry carbon offsetting scheme called CORISA.
Persons:
Mark Kenber, ” Kenber, Kenber, Susanna Twidale, Mark Potter
Organizations:
Voluntary, Initiative, Gold, Integrity Council, Thomson
Locations:
British