Buying our way out of the climate crisis cannot be condoned

COMMENT: Last month, Grosvenor announced it will bring forward its carbon offsetting strategy by five years. This will make us the first carbon neutral property company by 2025. This year, we will offset emissions covering our corporate impact and embodied carbon from our developments. By 2025, this will cover all our emissions – including those from within our supply chain. But we know offsetting doesn’t have the best reputation. It is often seen as a crutch that allows polluters to go on polluting. Buying your way out of the climate crisis is not an approach anyone can condone: cutting emissions has to be everyone’s first priority and it is ours too. In 2019, we committed to cutting our emissions by 52% by 2030, and we are on track to achieve this. But even while we cut emissions, we will still be responsible for nearly half a million tonnes of carbon over the course of the decade. So we wanted to do more. We wanted to make an impact, not just environmentally, but also to drive our sector forward. Early adoption and creation of best practice around carbon offsetting seemed a good starting point. A complex issue On paper, offsetting is a win for business and the environment. Organisations invest in nature-based solutions or technology that avoid or mitigate emissions. The reality is more complex. There is little consensus on what ‘good’ offsetting looks like, or how to measure it. There is also debate about whether investing in nature-based solutions, technologies or renewable energy have the best results in the long-term. Certification schemes exist to tackle these issues by standardising measurement. But while these are hugely important steps, they remain works in progress, and it is on us to help build maturity and trust in the market. That means anyone using offsetting must ask hard questions and do the groundwork themselves to ensure what they are investing in makes a real, measurable difference. Two initiatives are pushing this agenda forward. First, a set of principles drawn up by the University of Oxford which address what a good offsetting scheme should look like, called the Oxford Principles. And second, the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets, which was launched last year by former Bank of England governor Mark Carney and aims to create a system in which offsets are both trusted and can be traded like any other commodity. This should help tackle another issue: price. Historically, carbon has been very cheap to offset. It has been too easy for companies to buy carbon neutral status rather than working on reductions. Taking the first step For us, improvements will not happen if we wait for solutions from others. Corporates take a strong approach and share what they learn so we can better understand what is effective. Plus, the questions over offsetting are not insurmountable and answering them can have a hugely positive impact. Investments allow us to expand the scope of our impact beyond our value chain, to have much broader reach in tackling the climate emergency. Developing our strategy has helped us determine the types of offsets we will invest in, as well as those we will not. We acknowledge the benefits of shorter-term offsets like reforestation, but we are also looking towards long-term solutions through carbon capture and storage. As a first step we have appointed an industry partner to support the development and transparency of our approach. We will also appoint long-term carbon offset providers. We have pledged to share learnings to help everyone understand what a quality offset looks like, and we will externally audit our approach. This is all part of ensuring that what we are investing in is long-term and high-quality. Ultimately, we want to take responsibility for the emissions we, and our value chain, produce as we work on reducing our footprint. That means offsetting. The climate crisis needs bold action and we do not feel we can wait. Tor Burrows is executive director for sustainability and innovation at Grosvenor Britain & Ireland and UKGBC climate ambassador at COP26