Aclymate Was Born Out of Frustration…

We were frustrated that every time we spoke to people who wanted to act on climate, we ended up having to educate them on all the complexities of carbon markets and climate change. That as sustainability professionals at large companies created the tools for dealing with their problems, they were creating a system and a language that was inaccessible to the layperson. We decided it could be done differently. We want to make powerful climate action available to everyone.

One of the first things that most people decide to do is buy carbon offsets. They often don’t know why, just that it feels like the right thing to do. As someone who developed the largest carbon reforestation project in US history, I’ll be the first to tell you that offsets are important. There is no path to our climate future without continuing to develop high-quality, carbon offset projects.

But to be clear, the first and most important priority in any company’s climate action plan is to reduce emissions first*.* We cannot offset our way out of the problem, based upon the limits of physics and biology. Offsets will only be part of the solution, which is why we’ve made our climate accounting and analytics tools free to everyone. We believe that you have the right to know what your footprint is.

The other problem with offsetting is that it leaves a company concerned about the legitimacy of the offsets that it is purchasing. There are a lot of reasons to be worried, as we hear increasing stories of why one offset project or another doesn’t add up to what it claims to be. In part, these stories are correct, but they’re missing the bigger picture — the most responsible companies offset in addition to having an emissions reduction plan. You don’t need to be that worried about offsets coming back to bite you if you’re already doing the hard work.

So do the hard work. But also, offset what you can’t yet eliminate. Because offset projects have some really amazing secondary benefits in addition to their climate outcomes, and as a whole, you can be proud of what you have helped create.

Now, let me tell you what you need to know about carbon offsets

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