I changed my mind about insetting

Last week, I came out guns blazing against carbon credits as a way for companies to "offset" their emissions. And I called bullshit.

I was convinced that when I researched insetting this week, it would reveal itself as offsetting's evil stepsister. But now that I'm more informed, I've realised that insetting is less evil stepsister and more Cinderella.

Unlike offsetting, where businesses can continue to emit – and even increase – emissions by paying someone else to remove the carbon from the atmosphere (which usually never happens), insetting is a way for businesses to reduce their emissions by investing in interventions in their own supply chains.

That means businesses must actually do the work themselves.

But that's not to say that there isn't room for manipulation or greenwashing in insetting.

What is carbon insetting?

To understand carbon insetting, you first need to understand the difference between Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions:

• Scope 1 emissions: Direct emissions from owned or controlled resources.

• Scope 2 emissions: Indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy.

• Scope 3 emissions: Indirect emissions that occur within a business's value chain, including production, distribution, and sales. Emissions along the value chain often represent a company’s biggest greenhouse gas impacts.

Insetting only addresses Scope 3 emissions.

Through insetting, businesses decarbonise their value chains by investing in nature-based, nature-positive solutions and operations, like reforestation, agro-forestry, and regenerative agriculture.

Here are three examples:

☕️ Coffee producer Nestle supports smallholder coffee farmers in Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Guatemala by planting shade and economically productive trees within coffee plantations. This agroforestry insetting programme stabilises and restores ecosystems by storing water, protecting soil, and enriching biodiversity – as well as offering new income opportunities through the sale of timber and fruit.

🍺 Beer producer Carlsberg will source barley from regenerative farming practices for three of its brands in the UK, Finland, and France. In collaboration with barley malt supplier Soufflet, Carlsberg has introduced cover crops in the barley fields to assist with regenerative farming processes. By 2026, it aims to brew one of its brands with 100% responsibly sourced barley that is traceable using blockchain technology.

🐐 Luxury brands group Kering (which owns Gucci and Balenciaga) has partnered with the Wildlife Conservation Society on an insetting project in Mongolia, where it sources its cashmere. The surging goat population due to growing cashmere demand has degraded native grasslands and led to herd starvation. By investing in an insetting project that includes rotational grazing, advanced herd management practices, and animal welfare training, Kering has managed to reduce the negative upstream impacts of cashmere production and improved fibre quality, biodiversity, and the health of the goats.

Insetting ultimately creates a more resilient supply chain and has positive impacts on the ecosystems that businesses depend on by improving the livelihoods of indigenous communities and restoring and rejuvenating biodiversity and natural ecosystems.

What's the difference between insetting and offsetting?

• Insetting = Efforts to reduce carbon internally.

• Offsetting = Efforts to reduce carbon externally.

• Insetting involves real action taken by a company to reduce its negative impact on the planet.

• Offsetting involves throwing money at the problem and falsely claiming to have reduced its impact.

Businesses should do both as part of a larger plan to become Net Zero.

Why is insetting important?

Insetting plays a leading role in emissions reduction.

Nature is already an expert at pulling carbon from the atmosphere. Our forests, wetlands, and oceans act as carbon sinks, extracting and storing carbon.

But we're losing nature at an alarming rate: Around 40,000 species face extinction, 10 million hectares of forest are destroyed each year, and more than half of key biodiversity areas remain unprotected.

Insetting offers a sustainable approach to the climate crisis by preventing and reversing nature and diversity loss, regenerating ecosystems, and re-establishing natural carbon sinks.

Downsides of insetting

Unlike offsetting, where businesses can palm off responsibility to someone else and continue polluting regardless, insetting requires planning, introspection, and change.

It forces companies to look internally and address sustainability issues at the source, which many don't have the time or desire for. So, they take the easy way out and buy dodgy carbon credits that never amount to any real change.

But that's not to say that insetting cannot be manipulated.

As with offsetting, there are no global verification standards for insetting schemes.

And because it happens internally, it's hard to scrutinise the methods used or to independently benchmark progress.

With companies controlling the narrative, there's no way to know if the emissions reductions from insetting projects will be permanent. Will the trees the company planted eventually be logged? Who knows.

With so much controversy surrounding offsetting, it's natural to also question the integrity and transparency of insetting initiatives.

To overcome this, businesses should take a collaborative and personalised approach to insetting that prioritises positive community impact.

Tend to your backyard

Insetting works best when its in partnership with your local community.

Instead of paying someone else to plant trees on your behalf in some faraway land, go straight to the farmers who grow your food or crops.

What do they need? How can you support them? Invest your money there, measure the impact, tell their story.

When you make the change at the source, it sends positive ripple effects right up and down the value chain.

Focus on the changes you can make that address the local impact of your company's emissions. Then set a goal and just start.

For more info on how to develop an insetting programme for your business, check out these two resources:

• The International Platform for Insetting's (IPI's) Insetting Program Standard

• The IPI's Practical Guide to Insetting

— Tarryn ✌️

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This week's climate and sustainability news worth noting

🐋 A majority of nations agreed on language for a historic United Nations treaty that aims to protect 30% of ocean biodiversity by 2030, make it possible to create marine-protected areas, and enact other conservation measures on the “high seas". There is still a way to go before the treaty can take effect. The next major step would be for countries to formally adopt the language. Then, nations would need to ratify the treaty itself, which often requires legislative approval.

🛢️ Sultan al-Jaber, the UAE's COP28 president, says the oil and gas industry must lead the fight against climate change. The industry has been accused of delaying the climate and energy transition by working to preserve the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels. And new data has revealed more than 1,000 "super methane emitter" sites and 55 "methane bombs" around the world – mostly from oil and gas facilities. However, al-Jaber, who is also the Minister of Industry of the UAE and CEO of its Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, says the industry must “rapidly decarbonise its own operations … and has a vital role to play in decarbonising its customers".

☠️ After a year of war between Russia and Ukraine, scientists have found high concentrations of toxins such as mercury and arsenic in soil samples taken from the Kharkiv region. Pollution from munitions and fuel has degraded at least 10.5 million hectares of agricultural land across Ukraine so far – or a quarter of the agricultural land of a country once described as the breadbasket of Europe. It's expected that restoring fragile ecosystems could take decades, which would also affect global food supplies.

🥩 Scientists have warned that the global food system's greenhouse gas emissions will add nearly one degree Celsius to Earth's surface temperatures by 2100 on current trends, obliterating Paris Agreement climate goals. A major overhaul of the sector – from production to distribution to consumption – could reduce those emissions by more than half, they say.

🔭 Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, has launched CarbonLock, a $20 million research programme to develop new ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere and permanently lock it away.

🧕🏽 Wednesday, 8 March, was International Women's Day. Reuters published a list of 25 trailblazing women leading the fight against climate change to honour their awesomeness.

🌾 Researchers have discovered the DNA sequence of a gene in wheat that is responsible for resisting a devastating virus. The discovery could provide vital clues for managing more resistant crops and maintaining food security. Meanwhile, the International Atomic Agency has launched sorghum and cress seeds into orbit, exposing them to more-intense solar radiation. The trial aims to induce genetic mutations so seeds can survive hotter temperatures, drier soils, spreading pestilence, and rising sea levels.

🔥 A fire broke out at a landfill in Gaza. Officials were concerned that the fire could burn for days and create an environmental catastrophe. Local fire crews did not have the capacity to cope with the blaze, and authorities appealed to international organisations for help to extinguish it.

🌀 New research released this week:

• Climate change could cost Germany up to 900 billion euros ($960bn) in cumulative economic damage by 2050.

• Annual damage caused by flooding in the UK could increase by 20% over the next century.

• And parts of Asia's largest cities could be under water by 2100 due to rising sea levels.

A lot of this can be avoided if pledges to reduce global carbon emissions are met.

And in business news:

💶 Germany's largest bank, Deutsche Bank, has tightened its coal financing policies. It will not take on new clients that generate more than 30% of revenue from coal and that do not provide a "credible diversification plan". Existing clients have until 2025 to convince it of their ability to shift to lower carbon business models or risk losing financing.

🧐 The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) has released its 2023 Climate Risk Landscape report, which aims to help businesses to better understand their climate risks and opportunities and the strategies they should take. The report analyses dozens of different climate risk tools designed to help companies set targets, assess their alignment, and implement their net-zero strategies. It also covers trends in the regulatory landscape and the increasing use of technologies such as AI and geospatial data. Download the report here.

I'll leave you on this happy note...

An owl named Flaco has escaped a New York zoo, where he was born in captivity over 20 years ago.

After living in an enclosure for two decades, "Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl was suddenly free in Central Park and exposed to all the real-life perils and thrills of Gotham".

CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT THAT MUST FEEL LIKE?

People were worried that he wouldn't know how to hunt or defend himself. What if he got hit by a car? What if he ate a poisoned rat?

But the wise old owl is living his best life.

"Within a week, he was becoming the apex predator he was born to be, proudly showing off the rats he’d killed with his bare talons."

Look at this pretty boy 💚

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