How ‘Balance Units’ consider nature and local communities as well as carbon

A new kind of sustainability credit that prioritizes biodiversity and social equity alongside carbon is picking up buyers.

To generate a “Balance Unit,” project developers take a conventional carbon credit but show that they can meet the additional requirements of a methodology developed by Balance Eco, the U.K. company behind the scheme. Those include commitments to biodiversity and to providing sustainable income to local communities. Projects also need to be protected for a minimum of 100 years, a substantially longer period than rules for conventional credits require.

Recent buyers for the units include Kid-A, a fast-growing mobile phone accessories company, and the record label Ninja Tune. Units are priced at £40 ($55) at present, said Daniel Morrell, Balance Eco’s co-founder and CEO. 

Kid-A’s purchases include close to 2,700 units from a 230-acre afforestation project on the shores of Scotland’s Loch Ness, where newly planted pine and aspen is providing a habitat for grouse and deer — and employment for the local citizenry. The units are based on carbon credits being developed under the Woodlands Carbon Code, a U.K. methodology that supports landowners involved in developing credit projects.

Don’t say ‘offset’

Morrell, a veteran of carbon markets, says he signed his first offsetting deal in 1988. But he pitches Balance Units as a move beyond offsetting, which is about neutralizing harm, toward creating something positive. 

“Our clients are not claiming that they’ve offset their carbon,” he said. “They’ll say ‘we’re balanced.’ We’ve created biodiversity, we’re creating social economics and we’re involved in the fight against climate breakdown.”

Morrell says project developers have already converted 270,000 carbon credits into Balance Units, and he has a pipeline of 5 million more. To onboard new buyers, Balance Eco provides a calculator to estimate how many units a company requires, based on typical emissions from its sector and its turnover. Larger businesses are encouraged to complete a more detailed carbon accounting exercise.

But how novel is Balance?

Morrell says Balance’s peer-reviewed methodology sets more stringent standards than others. But the company faces skepticism from market incumbents that already tout the biodiversity and community benefits associated with carbon credit projects.

One senior figure at a major carbon credit registry, who asked not to be named because the standards body does not generally comment on specific products, questioned whether the methodology provides adequate detail on how biodiversity and social outcomes are measured.

“Claims around novelty should therefore be treated with caution,” said the employee. “Integrating carbon with biodiversity and social outcomes has been a defining feature of several existing standards for many years, including long-standing requirements for stakeholder consultation, sustainable development assessment and safeguards.”