Offsetters' Comments on the Offset Vendor Survey

The David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) and the Pembina Institute published the results of their Offset Vendor Survey along with a guide for Canadian consumers, businesses and organizations on purchasing carbon offsets. In total 14 Canadian offset vendors as well as six international offset vendors were surveyed. We were one of the Canadian vendors surveyed and evaluated.

We applaud the efforts of the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute to ensure there is accountability and transparency in the dynamic carbon offset industry.  We believe that a robust, rigorous, high quality offset industry in Canada is a positive way to take action against climate change. However, within one hour of the report being published, Offsetters contacted both DSF and Pembina to discuss a number of concerns we had with the survey and how it was conducted.

We thought we would review some of the criteria used for the survey to ensure there are no misunderstandings of the best practices Offsetters uses to conduct its business:

Additionality – to be considered a high quality offset the standard of additionality must be met.  In the simplest of terms, it is the criteria that ensures an offset project would have not taken place in the absence of carbon market support. The DSF/Pembina scoring system provides full marks for projects that follow the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and/or Gold Standard methodology.  We agree that these standards set the bar for rigorous project additionality. This is why all of our projects have been validated by qualified third parties as meeting or exceeding the criteria of these standards.  However, our projects cannot be fully certified to either Gold Standard or CDM because both of these standards are applicable only to projects and credits in developing countries. Our most recent projects were validated and verified to the BC Offset Emissions Regulation, the leading regulatory standard in the North American market, whose additionality criteria are entirely consistent with Gold Standard and CDM additionality. If Offsetters were to only broker Gold Standard credits then our ranking would have been 20/20. We feel that the preference outlined by the guide for Gold Standard and CDM designation undermines the Canadian offset industry and is punitive to Canadian offset project developers. 

Unique Ownership – a best practice is for offset vendors in the voluntary market to register offsets on a publicly accessible registry.  This demonstrates clear ownership of credits and eliminates the possibility of double selling of credits. All of Offsetters’ carbon credits available to the public are listed on a public registry.  In fact we were the first offset provider in Canada to register our credits on an internationally recognized third party registry. However, a significant portion of Offsetters business is with the Pacific Carbon Trust, a crown corporation of the BC Government.  This regulated body reports annually and publicly on its offset purchases on behalf of the BC government, making a third party registry unnecessary.  Offsetters’ initial ranking on this criteria had been suppressed because the Pacific Carbon Trust, as an arm of government, provides full and direct disclosure under the relevant legislation and does not need to use a third party.  In addition our sales and inventory processes are subject to third party review by auditing firm Berris Mangan, a fact that has not been reflected in the survey scoring.

Public Education – this criteria as described in the ranking seems to focus mainly on website content.  However in the past 18 months, members of our senior team have made approximately 100 public presentations to audiences varying in size from 25 to 750, educating, informing and hopefully inspiring behavior change. We work closely with our over 80 partners and clients to ensure that together we can take meaningful action on climate change.  We feel these criteria should be broadened to include this form of outreach as it encourages two way conversations and better understanding.  

Offsetters hopes to continue working with the David Suzuki Foundation and Pembina Institute to establish and lead best practices for the industry. Our goal in clarifying information and expressing our point of view regarding the survey is to ensure that proper due diligence is undertaken as we all strive to build a better industry together.