Your Footprint. Australia’s Trees. Our Future.
What is carbon positive?
Moving beyond carbon neutral
What does it mean to be carbon positive?
‘Carbon neutral’ is a state that occurs when net greenhouse gas emissions are equal to zero. ‘Carbon positive’ means going beyond this, making additional ‘positive’ contributions to the environment.
While many organisations are choosing to reduce their climate impact to zero by becoming carbon neutral, some, like Unilever and Woolworths Australia, are choosing to go one step further by becoming carbon positive.
This means reducing and offsetting more emissions than they release and taking other positive actions towards restoring our environment.
Becoming carbon positive may include:
- Halting deforestation;
- Eliminating the use of fossil fuels;
- Sourcing all energy from renewable sources; and/or
- Offsetting more carbon than has been released.
The process
We all have a role to play in protecting our unique and fragile environment.
Collectively, reducing and offsetting emissions can have a meaningful impact in mitigating the effects of climate change.
The first step towards becoming carbon neutral or carbon positive is measuring your carbon emissions. You can access our free online Carbon Calculator to understand and quantify your carbon footprint.
Unfortunately, some carbon emissions are unavoidable. In our current economy, it’s nearly impossible to reduce your carbon footprint to zero.
To counterbalance the emissions you can’t reduce, you can offset. A carbon offset is a unit that represents the prevention, reduction, or removal of 1 tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-e) from the atmosphere. If you wish to become carbon positive, you can offset more than your remaining emissions, reducing the impact of climate change faster.
You can learn more about carbon emissions here.
Becoming certified
In Australia, there are over 120 organisations that are certified as carbon neutral.
To become certified carbon neutral and be able to display a logo on your website or products, organisations in Australia must be certified under the Climate Active Carbon Neutral Standard.
Climate Active certification is awarded to Australian organisations that have met rigorous requirements to achieve net-zero carbon emissions. This requires an organisation to credibly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and then offset any remaining emissions through the purchase of carbon offsets.
Climate Active certification demonstrates to clients, customers, and shareholders that your organisation is serious about taking positive action on climate change.
It’s important to note that not all offsets are eligible under the Climate Active Standard.
For more information on becoming certified carbon neutral, contact our team.
