Companies use carbon offsets to essentially pay for the right to create climate-harming emissions. Individuals can use then as well, for example to offset the impacts of airline travel. They can be effective, paying to help build a clean energy project, protect and preserve carbon-sequestering forests, or funding energy efficiency projects - which could even pay further benefits for a homeowner.
On this episode of Deeper Shade of Green, Glen Dowell, Professor of Management at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell explains how they work and how companies often include offsets in emission-reduction or net-zero plans. They don't always however produce the desired results or fund any long-term project that helps the environment. But Powell notes there are ways to check and see if carbon offset payments are making a difference. He further adds policies could make these and other mechanisms effective ways to get industries to reduce their emissions impacts, something he contends in increasingly critical.
Music for this episode of Deeper Shade of Green comes from the Syracuse-based Jazz group E.S.P., the song is Reach.
Production help, research and guest booking by Hector Perez.
