Carbon Offset Provider Evaluation Matrix

Climate change, or rather, climate destabilization, is the greatest challenge facing the world today, and will have significant ramifications for business.   To address this challenge and minimize risks, both internal and external, businesses must get their own house in order.  That is, complete a Green House Gas (GHG) footprint analysis, strategically evaluate product and service offerings for climate change risks, set reduction goals for both product/service and operational GHG emissions, implement programs to achieve those reduction goals, and finally, consider carbon offset purchases.

Due to the rapid growth of the still developing voluntary carbon markets there is a wide range of offset products being offered, resulting in confusion on the part of individual and organizational purchasers of carbon offsets. Which standards are meaningful, respected in the marketplace, and meet individual or organizational objectives associated with carbon offset purchases?

In order to address confusion regarding how to select offset providers to mitigate GHG impacts (after efforts have been taken to reduce energy use and GHG emissions internally), Carbon Concierge initiated the development of a process for evaluating carbon offset providers, resulting in the development of the Carbon Offset Provider Evaluation Matrix (COPEM or Evaluation Matrix).

This paper outlines Carbon Concierge’s approach to evaluating offset providers via the Evaluation Matrix, which includes eight crucial criteria for evaluating carbon offset providers, each of which are explained in detail. These criteria are: Business and Project Transparency; Offset Quality; Project Location and Offset Traceability; Industry Leadership; Business Model and Program Services Ratio; 3rd Party Evaluation; Education; and Social Benefit. This paper aims to help offset purchasers better understand the performance of carbon offset providers and to select the best offset provider for an individual’s or organization’s goals.

This report includes research results for seventeen North American offset providers that were evaluated using the COPEM framework. In all cases Carbon Concierge encourages the use of real, verified, permanent, additional and unique carbon offsets as part of an overall avoid-reduce-and-offset carbon management strategy. Our COPEM tool allows purchasers to prioritize individual criteria for an offset purchase and to see which offset providers are best suited to meet the needs of the purchaser. In this way, the tool is customizable.

Download the report here (PDF).