What Is Carbon Offsetting?
Carbon offsetting is something you may’ve heard of companies and organisations doing to counteract their carbon footprint.
There’s not really one single, concrete, definition — everyone has their own ideas of what ‘counts’ as carbon offsetting, but basically:
Carbon offsetting is where someone — usually a business or organisation — attempts to counteract their carbon footprint by supporting environmental projects.
…This might be an investment in a green energy scheme, such as a wind farm or tidal energy project, or — one of the most common — planting trees.
(Which is, sadly, often a form of greenwashing, rather than having any actual environmental benefit.)
Putting it simply: planting trees does not reduce your carbon footprint. (…Or at least, not as much as you think it does.)