In Depth

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What we learned by offsetting world leaders' travel to COP26

<a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/cop26">COP26</a>, the next UN climate conference, starts on 1st November. In the days before the conference gets underway, world leaders and their entourages from all corners of the globe will make their way to the UK, and over to the conference venue in Glasgow.
As one of our COP activities, at Ecologi we decided to offset the world leader’s flight emissions, as well as planting two trees &#8211; one tree at one of our reforestation sites in Scotland, and one tree in our overseas sites &#8211; for every world leader representing a Party to the UNFCCC at COP26 &#8211; even the ones who didn’t bother to show up.
That’s 197 world leaders’ travel in total, totalling around 331 tonnes of carbon to be offset, and also 394 trees to be planted.

We chose to do this because, whilst all of us should be taking steps to reduce our emissions (including limiting or abstaining from air travel) our team &#8211; guided as ever by our wonderful Climate Committee &#8211; agreed that attending a key UN climate conference in person is one of the more compelling reasons to fly across the world.
As we’ve discussed before, <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/articles/in-depth/carbon-offset-faqs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">offsetting is not a substitute for making cuts in emissions</a>: not flying is always better than flying and then offsetting. However, given the importance of COP26 and the fact that we believe that, for this particular kind of event, attending in-person is better than being remote, we chose not to chastise world leaders for flying to Glasgow.
Instead, we chose to celebrate the idea of leaders coming together to negotiate and discuss climate change. We calculated what their emissions would be, assuming they travelled from the location of their country’s seat of government (a full breakdown of how we did our calculations is below), and we will be retiring carbon credits equivalent to that amount &#8211; in our usual mix of tonnes verified to a leading carbon standard (to see how we select our projects for offsetting, <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/articles/in-depth/carbon-offset-faqs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">take a look on the blog</a>). We hope that this gesture will mitigate some of the negative impact associated with the flights these world leaders have taken to get there.
As well as the offset, we thought the act of planting two trees apiece for all 197 Parties, with each nation’s name on it, into <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/copse26" target="_blank" rel="noopener">our virtual &#8216;COPSE26&#8217; forest</a>, would represent our feeling of goodwill about the COP finally taking place after a year’s delay.
Our gesture comes with a very simple message to world leaders: make it count.

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The 331 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent produced by these world leaders’ travel to COP is, according to the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator">EPA&#8217;s calculation</a>, approximately the same as the emissions produced by burning 766 barrels of oil, or by consuming over 37,000 gallons of gasoline, or by <a href="https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator" target="_blank" rel="noopener">charging a smartphone 40 million times</a>.
According to <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aag2345" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this 2016 article in the journal Science</a>, the 331 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions produced by sending these world leaders to COP will result in the loss of 993 square metres of Arctic sea ice.
As with every COP, there are already discussions taking place in the media about whether the event is or will be a success. Lots of these are centred around the fact that certain world leaders have ‘snubbed’ the event by not showing up in person. 
More pressing is the notion that concrete, effective climate agreements and commitments need to result from COP26 in order for there to be a realistic chance of limiting global surface warming to 1.5ºC by the end of the century, and perhaps even for limiting it to 2ºC warming.
This is why our message to the world leaders, in particular those representing countries of the Global North and countries with the highest historical and current emissions, is this:
&nbsp;
Welcome to Glasgow.
We have offset your personal travel here (even if you didn’t show up) and we have also planted two trees for each of you, in your country’s name.
We have done this because we believe that running COP26 in person will lead to a better chance of the conference ending in an agreement that will heal our ecosystems, restore balance to our climate system, and support a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels.
It is our hope that you will listen to the billions of people worldwide who are calling for climate action. These people deserve and expect you to deliver real, impactful action in Glasgow in the coming days.
The following two weeks are your opportunity to step up. Show leadership. Take initiative. Cooperate. You already know what’s at stake &#8211; your own scientists have been warning you for years.
It now falls to you to carry out your end of the bargain. 
Make it count.

5 things we learned whilst researching this campaign:

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Last year, COP26 was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic whilst other global summits simply went online. Telepresence (a fancy word for <a href="https://drawdown.org/solutions/telepresence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tuning in remotely</a>) is a recognised climate solution since it dramatically reduces (though does not totally eliminate) carbon emissions associated with running the event.
But undertaking an international climate summit online would have its challenges. Aside from the now-routine issues with accidental muting and difficulties connecting, there are more substantial ways that telepresence cannot match being there in person, when complex, sensitive issues are at hand.
As Leo Hickman, Editor of <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CarbonBrief</a>, pointed out during <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/events/2021/annual-lecture-2021.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Cabot Institute’s recent Annual Lecture</a>, it can be much easier for representatives of powerful countries in the Global North to ignore or shut out the voices of their counterparts from the Global South &#8211; when ignoring them can plausibly be blamed on a poor wifi connection.
The negotiations that take place at COPs are incredibly complex, involving thousands of people, and relying on quick, reliable, person-to-person communication to produce effective outcomes. In 2011, the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, which committed the Parties to a new legally-binding treaty to be defined in 2015, was agreed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference#Durban_Platform" target="_blank" rel="noopener">after a marathon 60-hour negotiation</a>. That new accord that the Parties had agreed to be bound by in 2015 became the Paris Agreement. Producing similar outcomes remotely may be difficult or even impossible.

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We already know that the countries of the Global North <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">are responsible for the vast majority</a> of historical emissions, and we also know that the countries of the Global South <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-climate-risk-index-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">are more at risk from the impacts of climate change</a> that they are not responsible for having caused. In addition, key pledges of funding by the Global North to the Global South <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-climate-finance-flows-are-falling-short-of-100bn-pledge" target="_blank" rel="noopener">have not yet materialised</a>, and this funding is <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59040538" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unlikely to be made available until 2023</a>.
There are a huge number of ways in which rich countries are treated differently on the international stage, but the ways in which the influence of countries from the Global South is suppressed at events such as COP26 goes beyond this. 
The COP has become prohibitively inaccessible for many delegates from the Global South. Two of the key reasons for this are vaccine inequity (since many countries are simply blocked from attending due to UK travel restrictions) and cost (since accommodation in Glasgow for two weeks during COP could set you back well over £5,000). In addition to travel bans, vaccine inequity means delegates from some countries in the Global South may be forced to risk their own health if they make the journey to COP. Delegates from many countries are also forced to reconcile the fact that journeying to COP in multiple legs &#8211; which applies far more to countries of the Global South than those of the Global North &#8211; creates far more emissions than a direct route.
As a result of all this, some activist groups including the Climate Action Network recently <a href="https://climatenetwork.org/2021/09/07/cop26-must-be-postponed-climate-action-network/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called for the COP to be postponed (again)</a> until it could be carried out inclusively. The COP is going ahead, but unfortunately, it still features exclusion and injustice.

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The airline industry operates <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/airline3.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">with a ‘hub and spoke’ model</a> &#8211; meaning that some airports (like London Heathrow, Dubai International Airport, and Amsterdam Schiphol) are vast international hubs. From far away, you usually have to travel long-haul to these hubs if you want to get to any of their nearby smaller cities. That’s why <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Dgk7vSL-7ZznhqZPjc5SsUXeQYYZ7HYeA3zkR7_GpUw/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">so many of the routes</a> to get world leaders to Glasgow include travelling through London or Amsterdam &#8211; these are the nearest major hubs.
Many of the possible routes provide hints at their respective countries’ colonial histories. This is why places like Nairobi in Kenya and Bridgetown in Barbados have direct flights to London, places like Luanda in Angola and Maputo in Mozambique have direct flights to Lisbon, and places like Bogotá in Colombia and Lima in Peru have direct flights to Madrid. Often these direct routes are run by the ‘flag carrier’ airline from the country which was historically the coloniser.
There are practical reasons this is the case too &#8211; for example, these countries are likely to share a common language (though of course this is often related to colonial history as well) &#8211; but looking at the data in researching commercial routes to COP, it’s hard to ignore the trends that appear before you.
In parallel, there <a href="https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=climate+change+and+colonialism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">are lots of long-reads</a> about the links between climate change and colonialism, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01460-w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">research has been conducted</a> into the coloniality of ecology too. This coloniality is why, for example, the Latin names for hundreds of bird species incorporate the surnames of European people, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01460-w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">with most of these species appearing outside Europe</a>, in formerly colonised countries.

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The Working Group I submission to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, which was published in August, <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gave a stark warning</a> of how slim the window of opportunity now is for us to limit warming to 1.5ºC. In each of the five emissions scenarios examined by the IPCC, warming was projected to surpass 1.5ºC (though it is important to note that in the lowest emissions scenario, warming recedes to 1.4ºC by the end of the century). Current policies have us <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/global/cat-thermometer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on track for significantly more warming</a> than this.
However, the ‘ratchet mechanism’ from Paris, exercised for the first time in Glasgow, is specifically designed to make these pledges, targets and policies more ambitious over time. This makes Glasgow’s conference enormously high stakes, and also a huge opportunity to show climate leadership. That’s why our message to world leaders is to make it count.

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Over the last five or six years, there has been an unprecedented upswell in awareness and action on climate. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/25/climate/world-climate-pledges-cop26.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The progress that has been made in such a short time</a> since the Paris Agreement is truly astounding. It’s still not enough yet, but the needle is starting to turn.
This applies both in terms of policy, but also the economics of climate change, with the price of renewables plummeting over the past few years, as well as the public awareness and consumer attitudes; increasing numbers of people are choosing plant-based diets, electric vehicles and gaining an <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2021/10/14/6e40a/2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">improved public understanding</a> of the importance of climate change.
The latest IPCC report shows us that we need action on climate now. The movement has never been bigger, and we are really only just getting started. In Glasgow, what we need is an understanding of the gravity of climate change, coupled with a fierce determination that will motivate us to drag down emissions and restore nature. The action we’ve seen in these past few years should encourage us, and give us hope that we can seize these immense opportunities and set things right.

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Firstly, we took a list of all 197 Parties to the UNFCCC, alongside listing their seats of government. We chose the seat of government because not all capital cities are used to host government offices or agencies (for example, in the Netherlands the capital is Amsterdam but the government is based in The Hague).
Where multiple candidate cities existed (for example, South Africa, which has three capital cities), the executive capital was chosen, as this is where the relevant world leader would be ordinarily based.
Where the seat of government does not contain an airport, or where a short overland journey could reduce the number of flight legs required, then the nearest accessible airport was selected as the origin airport. For example, we used Amsterdam Schiphol as the origin airport for the Netherlands, even though The Hague is 28 miles from Amsterdam. This process ignores political or other reasons which would otherwise exclude the nearest airport from use. 
Having established the origin airport and the destination airport (Glasgow), a simple online flights search was carried out for each world leader’s journey, to establish the optimal route for the journey. This journey was split out into its constituent legs, and each leg was entered as a return premium class flight into the <a href="https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/CarbonOffset/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator</a> to produce an estimate of the emissions output in tCO2e.
After a few iterations of this process, data for the final legs of many journeys could often be copied across, since so many routes to Glasgow arrive via a popular hub airport nearby &#8211; most often Heathrow, Dublin, Amsterdam Schiphol or Paris Charles de Gaulle. The data shows that 4 countries&#8217; representatives were able to travel to Glasgow in a single flight, 81 were able to reach Glasgow in two flights, 85 in three, and the remaining 27 in four.
A small number of journeys produced by the online search required an airport change between legs of the route on arrival (such as arriving into London Gatwick but leaving London via Heathrow). This was allowed.
A number of assumptions were required for producing the calculations for this campaign, primarily due to lack of available data, including:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">That all world leaders would attend COP 26, and that all of them would fly from the location of their seat of government. Comprehensive lists of world leaders attending the COP are not available, nor are there lists including where they will be travelling from, or their mode of transport.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">That world leaders would fly via commercial routes. In reality, some world leaders will fly to Glasgow on governmental planes, landing at military airbases and so on, as opposed to taking commercially available routes.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">That all world leaders will travel in premium class or equivalent. This makes a difference because emissions calculations per passenger are often produced as a function of the increased physical space afforded to the passenger in their specific class of travel.</li>
</ul>
Once we had completed the calculations for the amount of carbon dioxide emitted to get an individual from the seat of government of every UNFCCC Party to Glasgow we summed them together, totalling 330.15 tonnes (which we rounded to 331 tonnes), and we added this as impact to <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/copse26" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the COP 26 forest profile</a>. 
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Blog

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Carbon Compensation vs. Contribution - What’s the difference?

Climate change is a topic that many of us are discussing at work each day. You may have heard terms such as ‘carbon compensation’ or ‘contribution’ being used in conversations about how to take meaningful action against climate change, but what do they actually mean, and how do they differ from one another? 
We regularly speak to businesses who have similar questions and in this guide, we’ll break it all down. Here’s a quick run-through of what we will cover:
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<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What are the definitions of carbon compensation and contribution?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What is the purpose of each approach?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What mechanisms do both approaches utilise? </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What types of projects do they involve?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What types of certification are associated with each approach?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What kind of costs are associated with each approach?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What role do they play in achieving net zero?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What are examples of each?</li>
</ul>

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<h2>Definitions of carbon compensation and contribution</h2>
 
Carbon Compensation
Carbon compensation refers to the idea of balancing out a certain amount of carbon emissions by investing in projects that prevent or remove an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide elsewhere. This tonne-for-tonne ‘balancing’ or ‘offsetting’ is compensatory.
 
Contribution
This approach focuses on separating financial contributions from any compensatory claims. Instead, it involves directing funding to projects that will support global net-zero and nature restoration – but crucially without making compensatory claims. <a href="https://www.onepercentfortheplanet.org/join?utm_feeditemid=&amp;utm_device=c&amp;utm_term=one%20percent%20for%20the%20planet&amp;utm_source=google&amp;utm_medium=ppc&amp;utm_campaign=&amp;hsa_cam=20766754741&amp;hsa_grp=155667469859&amp;hsa_mt=b&amp;hsa_src=g&amp;hsa_ad=680329727495&amp;hsa_acc=%7B8900384824%7D&amp;hsa_net=adwords&amp;hsa_kw=one%20percent%20for%20the%20planet&amp;hsa_tgt=kwd-299092657918&amp;hsa_ver=3&amp;gad_source=1&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwooq3BhB3EiwAYqYoEs0haU6oWnJZze5_b4QrYSQvdqPvXRSRdMCOrjloCv_URVN-RaIXIBoChu8QAvD_BwE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1% Percent For the Planet </a>is an example of this kind of scheme.

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<h2>What is the purpose of carbon compensation and contribution</h2>
 
Carbon Compensation
Compensation is aimed at achieving a ‘carbon-neutral’ status by offsetting specific emissions through equivalent carbon reduction elsewhere.
 
Contribution
Contribution focuses on supporting and financing sustainability projects and initiatives to encourage environmental stewardship, without associating this with compensation for emissions.

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<h2>What mechanisms do carbon compensation and contribution utilise?</h2>
Carbon Compensation
Compensation is carbon-centric and relies on detailed measurement and verification processes to ensure that the projects avoid or remove the claimed amount of CO2. Whilst projects may have ‘co-benefits’, project quality and credit utility is predicated on whether the carbon dioxide benefit is being delivered.
 
Contribution
Contribution is not predicated on carbon dioxide. It involves making donations to strategic funds which are designed to produce a range of benefits for net-zero and nature restoration – but may not require rigorous CO2 measurement or verification, but other kinds of monitoring and reporting are essential to ensure benefits are being realised.

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<h2>What types of projects do carbon compensation and contribution involve?</h2>
 
Carbon Compensation
Compensation is limited to projects which generate carbon credits,  typically those that are issued to an ICROA-endorsed carbon standard like Verra, Gold Standard or Puro. It includes projects such as afforestation, blue carbon removal, landfill gas, cleaner water systems and enhanced rock weathering.
 
Contribution
Contribution can include carbon credit-issuing projects but is not limited to them. Other projects that can be financed include funding for environmental research, habitat restoration, conservation programs, reforestation projects, educational initiatives, and donations to NGOs working on climate action.

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<h2>What type of certification is associated with carbon compensation and contribution?</h2>
 
Carbon Compensation: 
Carbon compensation requires third-party verification and certification by bodies such as the Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Puro to ensure the credibility of carbon credits. 
 
Contribution:
Contribution typically does not require certification as it is focused on voluntary financial support for environmental causes. However, reputable organisations receiving contributions may provide transparency reports or impact statements.

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<h2>What kind of costs are associated with carbon compensation and contribution?</h2>
 
Carbon Compensation: 
Costs for carbon compensation vary depending on the project type and verification costs. The price per tonne of CO2 offset can differ significantly with some being much more expensive than others.
 
Contribution: 
Contribution is usually more flexible when it comes to costs. This is because the focus is on voluntary contributions towards environmental outcomes,  rather than compensating for a specific amount of emissions.

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<h2>What role do carbon compensation and contribution play in achieving net zero?</h2>
 
Carbon Compensation:
The <a href="https://sciencebasedtargets.org/net-zero" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SBTi’s Net-Zero Standard</a> specifies that businesses must achieve a minimum 90% reduction in emissions on their path to net-zero &#8211; at which point a compensatory approach can be applied for the remaining &lt;10% of emissions which cannot be reduced directly. In this case, compensation is limited to carbon removals only, not carbon avoidance credits. To understand the difference between carbon avoidance and removal credits, <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/articles/blog/carbon-removals-vs-carbon-avoidance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">read our blog post here.</a>
 
Contribution:
The SBTi also promotes ‘beyond value chain mitigation’ known as BVCM. This involves a company funding climate action to support global net-zero efforts. BVCM does not count towards the organisation’s own corporate net-zero goals, however, the SBTi considers it “urgent and essential” that businesses contribute to global climate action outside of their value chain.

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<h2>Examples of carbon compensation and contribution</h2>
 
Carbon Compensation:
A company offsets its annual carbon emissions by investing in carbon credits from a landfill methane capture project that prevents an equivalent volume of emissions.
Contribution: 
A company contributes to an environmental project that works on biodiversity conservation, without claiming an offset of its own emissions. Instead, the company reports on how much it contributed, and the outcomes intended, and monitors the project’s progress over time.

<h2>Conclusion</h2>
In summary, Carbon Compensation focuses on the idea of ‘balancing’ or ‘offsetting’ emissions through purchasing carbon credits. The credits purchased are often used to offset emissions generated by businesses.  Contribution focuses on funding projects that support global net-zero goals without compensatory claims. Through supporting a contribution model, you can support a wide range of projects all offering crucial co-benefits, and in some cases, credit-issuing projects too. 
Both approaches play a critical role in supporting climate action. The Oxford Principles for Aligned Net Zero recommend a combination of carbon compensation (durable removals only)  and contribution to help maximise impact. At Ecologi, we believe that while both have their merits, prioritising high-quality, holistic climate action through a contribution-based approach is the best way to support global net-zero efforts and future-proof your sustainability strategy. This is why we created <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/business/ecologi-impact-funds" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Impact Funds</a> &#8211; to allow our customers to support a wide range of projects that contribute to a particular climate goal.

<h2>Why did you create Impact Funds?</h2>
Our industry is moving and evolving all the time in an effort to reach global Net Zero goals and at Ecologi we witnessed the challenges firsthand through our Impact Partners, below is a quote from our Impact Partnerships Manager, Katie; 
<blockquote>At Ecologi, our partners were extracting tree-planting costs from a wider landscape restoration project because that’s what the market wanted. We need to change this &#8211; and educate the market on the solutions our planet needs.</blockquote>
Contribution models are increasingly focused on outcomes rather than inputs and go beyond metrics such as carbon credits purchased, or the number of trees planted. These projects produce a host of diverse impacts that aren’t being captured by single metrics. Supporting projects such as landscape restoration focused on the wider strategy &#8211; in addition to tree planting, landscape restoration captures co-benefits such as increased biodiversity, improved soil health, and reduced pollution.
Interested to learn more? <a href="https://info.ecologi.com/ecologi-impact-funds/get-started" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Get in touch to find out more about our Impact Funds</a>.

Speak to our team. We're here to help you find your perfect climate solution.

Case studies

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Case Study: BioPak UK

<h2>About BioPak UK</h2>
A world without waste. That’s the mission of BioPak, and they’re working hard to achieve it. By disrupting the current take, make, waste model, BioPak’s sustainable food packaging solutions are leading the way to a truly circular economy.
Founded in 2006, BioPak has become a globally recognised brand, loved by businesses and consumers across Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US, Hong Kong and Singapore.
BioPak’s packaging solutions are designed to be better for our planet. They use renewable plant-based materials that are sourced responsibly. To promote responsible disposal of their packaging, BioPak encourages composting through their Compost Connect scheme—a not-for-profit initiative that connects customers to compost pick-up services.

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BioPak is better for people too. The company is B Corp certified and donates 5% of all profits to positive change via their Give Back Fund. BioPak is a business that’s truly committed to the principles of the Triple Bottom Line: People, Planet, and Profit.

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<h2>Issue</h2>
BioPak’s commitment to combating climate change is unwavering. Having been carbon neutral certified for over a decade, in 2022 the team took the strategic decision to shift away from carbon-neutrality, and instead focus on emissions reduction.
This decision wasn’t taken lightly, but they recognised the need to move beyond mere carbon offsetting. They view it as a leap forward rather than a step back, and a move to create a more substantial positive influence on the planet. 
The team believes that understanding their total carbon footprint is vital. They are dedicated to clarifying the sources of their emissions, which span the entire product lifecycle, encompassing offices, product transportation, packaging production, raw material extraction, and end-of-life emissions.
BioPak uses an independent third party to measure their carbon footprint, cost to the environment (including impact on biodiversity, human health, climate change and material scarcity) and lifecycle phases of their products. This is done to enhance transparency, accountability and demonstrate their commitment to combating greenwashing.
BioPak is serious about combating climate change, with reducing carbon emissions being crucial in achieving this goal. A key part of this goal is supporting industrial composting through the Compost Connect scheme. The team is committed to diverting food waste and compostable packaging from landfill and incineration by making compost facilities more accessible across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Working together with customers, BioPak truly believes it can pave the way for a more sustainable world for future generations.

<h2>Challenges</h2>
As a B Corp and leader in sustainable food packaging, the team at BioPak feels a keen obligation for environmental stewardship. They describe BioPak as a “profit for purpose business”, and as such are driven to preserve and protect the environment while giving back to the communities in which they operate. 
To honour this obligation, BioPak set up its Give Back Fund in 2012, and since then have dedicated their time and energy to partnering with leading environmental and social charities to bring about positive change. So far they have donated a total of £2,495,352.
In the last decade, BioPak’s commitment to Australian environmental conservation has flourished through a partnership with Rainforest Rescue, which has planted and safeguarded 95,720 trees and reclaimed eight hectares of endangered Daintree Rainforest.

<h2>Solution </h2>
BioPak donates 1% of all profits to community and environmental projects, and here in the UK we’re proud that Ecologi has been chosen to support that commitment through tree planting. The team firmly believes that tree planting is a powerful solution that produces oxygen, stores carbon, and helps tackle climate change.
BioPak’s reforestation work with Ecologi underpins a global commitment to ecological restoration. This ambitious initiative is a cornerstone of BioPak’s corporate responsibility ethos, aiming to not only mitigate the impacts of climate change but also foster local biodiversity, enhance soil health, and support local communities in achieving sustainable development goals.
Working with Ecologi proves BioPak’s cast iron commitment to the environment, and in turn boosts its credibility, enhances its brand reputation and helps its customers make a positive impact. The team regularly communicates their sustainability milestones with customers and colleagues alike, through impact certificate, emails and internal communications.

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<h2>Outcome</h2>
Since 2021 BioPak has planted 102,479 trees with Ecologi, and the team plans to continue to regularly donate to increase this figure as much as they can. 
As a profit-for-purpose business, BioPak’s commitment to protecting the environment is vital in retaining current customers and attracting new customers, who are looking to make a positive impact through their supply chain. The Give Back Fund, and the work with partners like Ecologi, remains a fundamental part of BioPak’s brand messaging and ethos.
Sam Walker, Technical Director at BioPak UK, said:
<blockquote>It&#8217;s great to partner with Ecologi and support both the large scale reforestation projects they do and the more grass roots initiatives which really make a difference locally&#8230; Reforestation and habitat restoration are the foundations of reversing biodiversity loss and critical in the fight against climate change. We&#8217;re proud to work with Ecologi and share the impact data with our customers.</blockquote>

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<h2>Is your business ready to take climate action?</h2>
If this article has inspired your business to start its climate journey, talk to our team today.

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At Ecologi we believe in transparency, which is why, when we make changes, we want to let you know.
As of Tuesday 1st October 2024, we will be making a few changes to the Ecologi Impact Shop, including discontinuing some projects, as well as adding new ones and changing our prices slightly. 
Keep reading to find out more, or jump to the section on <a href="#customers">What these changes mean for our customers</a>, or our <a href="#faqs">FAQs</a>.

<h2>Update to our ‘Carbon avoidance’ project</h2>
We will be removing our generic ‘<a href="https://x.ecologi.com/impact-shop/support-carbon-avoidance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carbon avoidance</a>’ product from the Impact Shop, and replacing it with a new type of carbon avoidance project, which specifically supports landfill methane capture. This project is among the first in the world to receive the CCP-Approved quality label from the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM).
<h3>Why are we making this change?</h3>
In June of this year, the ICVCM, an independent governance body dedicated to establishing a global benchmark for high-quality carbon credits, <a href="https://icvcm.org/integrity-council-announces-first-high-integrity-ccp-labelled-carbon-credits-as-assessments-continue/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced the first carbon-crediting methodologies</a> that meet its high-integrity Core Carbon Principles (CCPs).
As part of this, the ICVCM have applied its ‘CCP-Approved’ label to a variety of projects that tackle potent greenhouse gases by capturing methane from landfill sites (like our supported <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/projects/avoiding-methane-emissions-from-landfill-in-brazil" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Macaubas LFG project</a>), and by destroying ozone-depleting foams and refrigerant gases from discarded equipment such as refrigerators and air conditioners.
We have been supporting landfill gas projects through our platform since our early days, including some of these first projects which have received this ICVCM stamp of approval. Effective on 1st October 2024, we are replacing the general ‘support carbon avoidance projects’ product on our Impact Shop, to specifically support these newly CCP-Approved landfill methane capture projects.

<h2>Discontinuation of our ‘Renewable energy carbon avoidance’ project</h2>
In addition, we will be removing the ‘<a href="https://x.ecologi.com/impact-shop/support-renewable-energy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Renewable energy carbon avoidance</a>’ product from our Impact Shop. The ICVCM recently decided it would not award the existing renewable energy credit methodologies its CCP-Approved label, so we’ve opted to preemptively stop offering these on our platform. For additional insight into this decision, we encourage you to read our <a href="#faqs">FAQs</a> further down on this page.
<h3>Why are we making this change?</h3>
One of the next decisions made by the ICVCM as part of its assessment of carbon credit methodologies was to acknowledge that existing renewable energy generation credit methodologies do not meet the standard to achieve CCP-Approval. 
One key reason these methodologies don’t meet the CCP-Approved criteria is that the methodologies themselves fail to meet the stringent requirements for additionality, a key factor in ensuring that carbon credits represent genuine emissions reductions that wouldn&#8217;t have occurred without the carbon finance. See this quote from Sylvera on what additionality refers to: 
<blockquote>Additionality refers to the causal relationship between the project&#8217;s activities and the climate benefits it claims including the risk of the project over-crediting. A project is considered additional if the project activities would not have occurred without the revenue from a voluntary carbon credit. The additionality score is a function of how likely it is that the project is additional, and how likely it is that the project is over-crediting on the carbon avoidance or removal it is delivering.</blockquote>
Ecologi has always had a regionalised approach to our impact, consistently applying additional scrutiny to the projects we elect to support through our platform. Only six renewable energy projects are currently eligible for receipt of funding from our platform – out of an estimated &gt;2,200 renewable energy projects on the voluntary carbon market. Our careful selection process has ensured that we consider not only the type of project but also its specific implementation location.
For example, we have deliberately chosen not to fund large hydroelectric dams due to their associated social and environmental risks and we have generally steered clear of offshore wind projects, favouring onshore wind solutions that are more appropriate for the regions we support. We have always prioritised those situated in areas where the energy grid is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, such as Morocco and Mexico, to maximise impact as much as possible.
This all said, following the ICVCM’s ruling on renewables, we have made the decision to stop offering renewable energy carbon credits via our Impact Shop.
We believe it is a good thing that the ICVCM is rejecting certain methodologies from receiving its high-quality label. This rigorous approach is necessary to maintain and improve the integrity of the carbon market – to raise the quality of projects across the board – and to ensure that all participants can trust that their investments are driving real, additional climate benefits.

<h2>Updates to pricing on the Impact Shop</h2>
Finally, on October 1st we will be updating pricing across our Impact Shop to reflect recent changes in market prices, and as a result some of our products will be cheaper to support.
<h3>Why are we making this change?</h3>
As part of our commitment to staying aligned with the evolving voluntary carbon market and providing the best prices we can to customers, we are also adjusting our pricing structure. To better reflect current market prices, we have reviewed and updated all the prices for carbon projects, some of which have reduced in price slightly. We are pleased to report that none of our existing projects have increased in price.
Pricing in the carbon market is dynamic, influenced by a variety of factors including regulatory updates, market demand, geographies, ratings, and broader project qualities. We aim to stay responsive to these changes and ensure that our offerings continue to provide value to all stakeholders involved, from project developers to buyers and the communities benefiting from these projects.
As an impact-driven organisation who put planet first, we want to ensure that we are responsive to the market and our customers are getting the best deal for the impact they want to support.

<h2>What do these changes mean for our customers?</h2>
There are no direct actions that our customers will need to take in light of these changes.
As of October 1st you will notice that our generic ‘<a href="https://x.ecologi.com/impact-shop/support-carbon-avoidance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carbon avoidance</a>’ project and our ‘<a href="https://x.ecologi.com/impact-shop/support-renewable-energy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Renewable energy carbon avoidance</a>’ project will no longer be available on the Impact Shop. You will also notice that our new CCP-Approved landfill gas capture project will be available to support, and that the price of some of our existing projects have decreased slightly.

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