Are carbon offsets/removal the latest form of greenwashing?

Are carbon offsets the latest form of greenwashing? Don’t be deceived by a brand’s attempt to mask not making tangible and meaningful changes to their carbon footprint by focusing on carbon offsets through carbon removal efforts like planting trees or sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in the United States is burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation. Carbon removal can’t come close to the impact of moving to clean energy. But offsets can look good for a brand.

Many corporations are leveraging carbon removal/offsets to position their businesses as contributing to being carbon neutral. A bit of a farce? Many studies confirm that carbon capture will only provide incremental help, and the bulk of the effort will be in reducing emissions. “It is now set in stone that the overwhelming majority of the EU’s mitigation efforts will need to be done by reducing emissions, with carbon removal helping to go the extra mile,” wrote Frances Wang and Mark Preston Aragonès, both of the ClimateWorks Foundation.

As a result, Climate Tech is the next big investment frontier aiming at decarbonizing the planet. It impacts sectors including transportation, real estate, and agriculture, and the industry encompasses startups focused on renewable power generation, electric vehicles, cellular agriculture, and forestry management, among other areas.

The space is attracting serious investment dollars. So far in 2021, global investors have already closed as many climate-focused funds as were raised during the previous five years combined. (PitchBook data 2021) In many ways, finding viable and scalable (forget imminent) investment opportunities feels like a “throw it at a wall, and see what sticks” situation. No single solution will solve the climate crisis. But we gotta start somewhere.