Not all carbon offsets are created equal.

You may find a difference between the cost of projects listed on this site and the average prices listed on the wholesale carbon market/s. That’s because this platform offers projects where we have gone the extra mile to ensure their integrity and deliver you the end-to-end service that others won’t. Our pricing is fully inclusive of the end-to-end services to ensure integrity, including:

• The cost to source, deliver and/or procure projects – Sourcing, purchasing and holding carbon units.
• TEM’s proprietary due diligence and risk management for each project – Put simply, we do the work to limit the chance that you will support a project that doesn’t deliver measurable and long-term carbon abatement.
• Our retirement process – Following each purchase, every carbon offset purchased on TEM Online can be transparently traced to a retired carbon unit listed on an independent registry.

Your purchase goes to the procurement of fully verified and independently audited carbon offset projects. TEM’s operational, due-diligence, risk management and marketing costs are also included in the list price. By purchasing from these projects, you are mobilising capital to support the project’s ongoing operations and benefits, alongside of ensuring measurable emissions reductions and avoidance.

TEM only supports carbon offset projects that are verified at the highest international standards. Of course, it is critical to ensure that the emission reductions generated by these projects are actually occurring. This is the work of accreditors like the VCS Program and the Gold Standard to ensure that once projects have been certified against rigorous criteria, project developers can then be issued tradable carbon offsets. All the carbon offset projects we support have undergone a rigorous due diligence process to guarantee quality, integrity and measurable carbon abatement impact. Read more on our Integrity page.

Before you’re able to purchase the carbon offset units in your order, we need to run some checks and balances. Carbon market participants in Australia who provide financial advice, trade, or make and operate and market in certain types of carbon credit units, or derivatives of these units, require an Australian financial services license (AFSL).

Tasman Environmental Markets Australia Pty Ltd (TEM) is authorised to provide financial services to wholesale clients (within the meaning of the Corporations Act 2001). We do not currently provide financial services to retail clients.

Most financial services provided by Tasman Environmental Markets Australia Pty Ltd are also designated services under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing Act 2006. Under the provisions of this Act, Tasman Environmental Markets Pty Limited is obliged to verify the identity of its clients.

TEM is also a signatory to the Australian Carbon Industry Code of Conduct (the Code). The code promotes best practice carbon market integrity, transparency, and accountability for Australian consumers. As a signatory to the Code, TEM has agreed to conduct business in line with the Code requirements.

At TEM, we believe transparency is the key to both impact and accountability.

TEM engages with carbon standards that are endorsed by the International Carbon Reduction & Offset Alliance (ICROA) and the Australian Government’s Climate Active program. These include:

• Verified Carbon Standard / Verra
• Gold Standard
• Clean Development Mechanism
• Australian Emissions Reduction Fund / Australian Carbon Credit Unit standards
• American Carbon Reserve

But TEM goes further than this. Through TEM’s due diligence process, we assess key aspects of carbon projects to mitigate any potential risks such as:

• Whether the project represents emissions abatement that is additional to what would have otherwise occurred in a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario.
• Whether the project methodology has been applied at best practice.
• Any issues identified in the project’s monitoring, verification, and validation reports.
• Any association of the project to bribery, corruption, environmental damage, or landholder mistreatment.
• The reputation of the project developer.
• Local community perception the projects; and
• The permanence and longevity of the project.

Carbon offsetting involves the purchase of an independently verified carbon offset equal to the calculated emissions of an individual or organisation.

Carbon offsetting allows individuals and businesses to invest in environmental projects around the world in order to reduce their carbon footprint.

One carbon offset is equal to one metric tonne of carbon dioxide reductions.

An activity, product or organisation is carbon neutral when its greenhouse gas emissions are equal to zero. To become carbon neutral, companies must rigorously calculate their emissions, reduce them as much as possible, then purchase and retire carbon offsets to the equivalent of the remaining emissions.

One carbon offset represents one metric tonne of greenhouse gas emissions reduced or removed from the atmosphere. A carbon offset is created by either a) removing one tonne of emissions from the atmosphere by for example planting forests, or b) preventing one tonne of emissions from reaching the atmosphere by for example replacing a fossil-fuel burning power plant with a wind farm.

If the carbon offset isn’t independently verified – you can’t be certain that the activity happened.

We support offsets from a diverse portfolio of international and domestic projects, including projects in every State/Territory across Australia and every continent in the world. All of our offsets are compliant under the Australian Government’s Climate Active Carbon Neutral Standard. Our projects are all accredited under a strict third-party verification standard. These standards have a rigorous set of rules and requirements to ensure each project delivers real, permanent, and additional benefits.

TEM only procures carbon offsets that are recognised under the Australian Government’s Climate Active standard and have undergone a strict process of due diligence, including site visits and reviews of project development documentation against recognised offset standards. The ‘stapled’ biodiversity credits offered in market are not part of any third-party industry standard and as such are not audited or verified. For this reason, TEM does not include stapled offsets in our portfolios.

Stapling can expose the buyer to several risks:

• Stapling can lead to an organisation investing in a project outcome that is not managed under the same strict scientific, environmental and social integrity standards as an Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) which is governed by the Clean Energy Regulator (CER)
• Stapling is often done alongside of a lower cost international unit which devalues the international unit and can de-emphasise its need for a high standard of due diligence
• Stapling can give the impression that the verified carbon offset and associated emissions reduction / avoidance has been delivered in Australia. This is not the case and has led to market confusion that presents a brand risk for those making the carbon neutral claim as it gives the false impression the verified carbon abatement has been achieved through the domestic part of the stapled unit’s activity

Additionality means that if the emissions reductions were not implemented by an offsetting project, then they would not have occurred anyway. This ensures that offset sales only finance projects that cause additional emissions reductions above business as usual. Simply put, because the carbon offset project exists, there are less carbon emissions entering or floating around the atmosphere than if the project did not exist.

Offset projects range from those that avoid emissions with activities like funding renewable energy projects, to those that remove emissions from the atmosphere by doing things like planting trees. All of these projects sequester or prevent the release of even more carbon, but also offer other co-benefits to the environment, the community, and local economies.

Different types of projects include:

• Renewable energy
• Community projects, such as cookstoves
• Land regeneration
• Forest conservation and protection
• Land management
• Waste-to-energy

Offsetting plays a critical role across all businesses carbon strategies. Some of the key benefits include:

• Meeting customer, investor and staff expectations to cut carbon pollution.
• Enhanced brand reputation and value.
• Improved brand integrity.
• Increased customer loyalty and sales.
• Meeting other strategic business goals, like Reconciliation Action Plan targets and aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals.
• Establish industry leadership.
• Market and geographic synergies from project co-benefits.
• Delivering co-benefits beyond carbon reductions, including biodiversity, gender equality and Indigenous employment.
• Meet emission-reduction targets while working towards long term sustainability changes.
• Inspire your workforce to engage in carbon reduction activities in house, in turn reducing your costs and supporting your goals.

Pollution and emissions do not stay within national borders. CO2 in the atmosphere spreads across the globe and is an international problem. Therefore, you can purchase offsets anywhere in the world and contribute to global emissions reduction. In many cases, carbon offset projects are located in developing countries because community and economic co-benefits from the project will have a bigger impact there. However, you may choose to purchase offsets locally due to the co-benefits that may positively impact your own supply chain or market.

Climate change is an international problem that cannot be solved without global support. We need individuals, organizations, and governments around the world to commit to climate action, because just one protected rainforest or carbon zero country cannot solve the problem. This is why supporting projects around the world through carbon offset funding plays a critical role in the solution to climate change.

The price of an offset depends on a range of factors, including the location, size, verification standard and value of the non-carbon benefits (e.g. ecosystem health and employment). The vintage of the offset can sometimes influence the price, but is part of a much larger picture.

Offsetting belongs as a critical part of any climate risk management strategy, not just at the tail end once all other options are exhausted. Building in offsets today has the advantage of (i) building internal capacity in carbon markets (ii) prices in the cost of carbon into doing business today (iii) helps drive further investments into much needed climate finance (iv) demonstrates sound risk management in view of new regulatory operating environments, including TCFD.

Just like wine, the ‘vintage’ of an offset indicates the year the offset was created. For example, a 2016 offset from a forest conservation project denotes the tonne of carbon measured and independently verified through the additional growth of the forest in that year.

Carbon offset projects typically continue over multiple years and generate offsets that can remain unsold in a given year, leaving them available to buy in future years. At TEM, we work with our clients to build offsets into their climate strategy to ensure that any purchase of previous year’s offsets are done to support the forward expansion and creation of new emission reduction projects. This helps to stimulate new climate finance in this critical decade, but also recognises the value of emissions reductions (and the other benefits delivered through the project) of climate finance that has been invested in prior years. We also procure offsets from projects still in operation i.e. they are a present continuous operation so the offset finance helps the project continue to sequester or avoid emissions.