Resources
Offset Climate Certified
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Offset Climate Certified® leverages the most internationally recognized standard for carbon accounting, the GHG Protocol.
All emission offsetting is completed via verified emission reduction projects listed on global, public carbon registries including but not limited to: Verra, Climate Action Reserve, ACR and Gold Standard. Offsets are always retired in the name of the certifying company, and detail the period for which they apply (e.g. calendar year 2025).
Verified carbon offsets applied to a certification year have a vintage of no more than six years of the certification year, including the certification year. For example, when certifying for 2025, verified offsets must have a vintage no older than 2020.
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Measurement covers the most relevant operational GHG emissions for service-based businesses across a calendar year, in accordance with the GHG Protocol.
Scope 1
Company vehicles & equipment fuel burnScope 2
Purchased electricity (utility)Scope 3
1. Purchased goods & services
2. Capital goods
3. Fuel & energy related activities
4. Upstream transportation & distribution
5. Waste from operations (when applicable)
6. Business travel
7. Employee commuting
8. Leased assets (when applicable)
9. Downstream transportation & distribution
13. Downstream leased assets (when applicable) -
What’s the difference between Offset Climate Certified® and being carbon neutral?
Carbon neutral is a term that in general means you have balanced (offset) the CO2e emissions created by your business activities, by financially supporting the verified reduction or removal of the same amount of CO2e emissions through a project elsewhere. Over time, the term carbon neutral has become increasingly vague, because it does not clearly define which CO2e emissions one measures and offsets. For instance, some companies claim carbon neutrality because they have measured and offset their Scope 1 and 2 emissions, but do not address their Scope 3 emissions.
Offset Climate Certified® is based on a standard measurement and offset framework specifically built for small, service based businesses. It addresses the most common types of emissions that a small business creates through its operations, most of which fall into Scope 3. Because it’s consistent and transparent, it’s easy to identify what it means when a business is Offset Climate Certified®.
And finally, carbon neutral means that you have compensated for the same amount of CO2e that you have contributed to the atmosphere during a specific time period. Offset Climate Certified® goes beyond carbon neutral, and compensates for 150% of your measured emissions. This helps address legacy emissions (ones you emitted in years prior to your first certification, and that are still out in our atmosphere).
How do I know that the carbon offsets used for my certification are only used for my certification, and not “double counted”?
Transparency is a core value of Offset Climate Certified®. When your business completes certification, verified carbon offsets are permanently “retired” on carbon registries like Verra in your business name like this example. Verified carbon offsets all have a unique serial number. When a carbon offset is retired in your business name, that serial number is recorded and permanently removed from being able to be used by anyone else. The registry maintains a permanent, public record of your verified CO2e reduction.
Why are we required to provide specific business travel details when getting certified?
If your team travels a lot for business, and especially if they take a lot of flights, this will most likely be your largest emission source. While some of your certification measurement is based on spend data (e.g. how much did you spend on office supplies in the measurement year), business travel–and especially flights, are highly variable. For example, that flash sale flight from coast-to-coast costs less than a last minute regional flight, but has a much higher emission related to it.
If my energy usage is bundled into my lease (I don't receive an actual energy bill)–how do you measure my CO2e footprint from energy usage?
It is quite common for small business tenants to not receive or directly pay their own energy bill. In this case we use the square footage and location of your leased space, and apply it to data that is published by Energy Star Portfolio Manager–a tool that provides benchmarked energy usage intensity, or "EUI" for a wide variety of building types across the U.S. and Canada. For example, buildings designated as business offices have a specific EUI represented in kWh/ft2/year. We combine this data with the CO2e intensity of energy (how much Co2e is created per kWh of energy delivered to the grid) published by United States and Canadian governments, to benchmark the CO2e emissions associated with your energy usage.
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Programs for
Travel Companies
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Your travel company’s climate action program is personalized. We design and host a co-branded, custom tailored landing page (like this example) as a destination for your guests to:
Learn about their travel’s climate impact
Understand your commitment to sustainable travel
Offset their individual or group travel
We track all offsets made by your guests and provide you with close to real-time details via an online portal. If your program includes an incentive for your guests to offset their travel emissions (e.g. you extend a discount), this portal provides you visibility into which guests have actually completed an offset.
At the end of each calendar year, we retire the total amount of verified carbon offsets funded by your guests and through your program, on the carbon offset project(s) pubic carbon registry. Your company is listed as the beneficiary, meaning the entity that has executed the verified reduction of CO2 emissions, like this example.
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Your personalized climate action program is designed to be as seamless as possible for your guests.
Your program web page has it’s own unique URL, hosted on offsetalliance.co - where you can point guests to learn more about your environmental and climate efforts and commitments, and take their own verified climate action in partnership with your company.
After completing a climate action transaction on your program web page, they are presented with either a message scripted by you, or are redirected to a web page of your choice.
Your program web page includes the cumulative impact made through your program, and is updated monthly.
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How will my guests’ experience be with my program?
Your guests’ experience is simple and secure. Our design approach incorporates your brand voice and low-friction checkout flow. We use Stripe and Paypal, ensuring world class payments privacy and security.
If I provide content specifically for my program, does that content remain as mine and will not be used in other forms of marketing?
Yes. All content provided by you is yours and remains yours, and will never be used by us in another application beyond your program with us.
Can I choose the verified carbon offset project that my guests’ climate action will support?
We work with you when setting up your program, to identify the best project option(s) to align with your sustainability goals. There may not be a project in your immediate geography, but there are plenty of options that should align well.
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Climate Friendly Business Gatherings
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Bringing people together to share ideas and celebrate success has a measurable carbon footprint. Our approach to measuring the carbon footprint of business gatherings is to focus on the most relevant CO2 emissions that result from hosting the event. Those include:
Air travel of all event attendees, both to the event and returning to their destination, and including any stopover / transfers
Ground transportation used by event attendees to get to and return from the event (taxi, ride share, rental car, shuttles)
Hotel accommodations for all event attendees (total number of hotel nights at the event location)
Dedicated space used throughout the event (e.g. conference rooms, exhibit areas) - including the size and the duration it was reserved and used
Purchased goods and services for the event (e.g. florist, private shuttles for excursions, food & beverage)
Unless the event is hosted at a facility owned by your company, or company owned vehicles are used for transportation, all of these event activities will fall into your company’s Scope 3 emissions in accordance with the GHG Protocol.
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If you choose to offset the measured carbon footprint of your business gathering, we provide options to do so via verified emission reduction projects listed on global, public carbon registries including but not limited to: Verra, Climate Action Reserve, ACR and Gold Standard. Offsets can be retired in the name of your company, and detail the reason for the offset (e.g. 2025 Leadership Summit).
It is also common for clients to roll the measurements of gatherings into their annual carbon accounting, providing better visibility of what makes up their comprehensive annual carbon footprint from operations.
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How do i gather travel information from our event attendees so it can be included in a carbon footprint measurement?
If you are hosting a customer event, it is common to include attendee home city in the registration flow. If it is an internal event comprised of team members gathering from their respective places of work / life, an HR report can provide this detail.
Most commonly, we support the gathering of these details by providing a personalized online survey that event attendees can complete in just a few minutes. This is a preferred approach for most of our clients to date, because it creates another positive touchpoint with attendees, and enables an explanation of why you are collecting the details and taking verified climate action.
How do I know that the carbon offsets used for offsetting my event are only used for my event, and not “double counted”?
Transparency is a core value of Offset Alliance. When your business chooses to fund verified carbon offsets with us, they are permanently “retired” on carbon registries like Verra in your business name like this example. Verified carbon offsets all have a unique serial number. When a carbon offset is retired in your business name, that serial number is recorded and permanently removed from being able to be used by anyone else. The registry maintains a permanent, public record of your verified CO2e reduction.
Why are we required to provide specific business travel details when getting certified?
If your team travels a lot for business, and especially if they take a lot of flights, this will most likely be your largest emission source. While some of your certification measurement is based on spend data (e.g. how much did you spend on office supplies in the measurement year), business travel–and especially flights, are highly variable. For example, that flash sale flight from coast-to-coast costs less than a last minute regional flight, but has a much higher emission related to it.
Have a question? Ask here
GHG Scopes 1,2,3 and carbon basics
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Getting started with measuring your business emissions can seem daunting at first. But with a general understanding of the most widely accepted and used standard for emissions inventory measurement and management (The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, or “GHG Protocol”), you will find this enlightening process more inviting.
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Performing carbon accounting of business activities provides insight into how carbon intensive a company’s operations or products are. The goal with this data is to find ways to make them less carbon intensive.
There is another factor related to carbon emissions, known as the the social cost of carbon - an estimated economic cost to society caused by emitting one additional metric tonne (2,205 pounds) of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.
Numerous economic studies have been performed by different entities, for example Stanford University - placing this number anywhere from USD $20 per ton to USD $250+ per tonne.
The United States Federal Government currently has the social cost of carbon set at USD $51 per metric tonne CO2.
Here is a useful explainer podcast to learn more.
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What is a carbon offset?
A measured and independently verified reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases - by either capturing/storing CO2 that is already in the air, or stopping/reducing CO2e from being added to the air. Examples of capture/store include forestry and grasslands, and examples of stop/reduce include renewable energy like wind and biomass. Carbon offsets are measured in metric tons of CO2e. For simplicity we convert metric tons in to pounds on our site and for our subscription options. One metric ton = 2,205 pounds.
What does a metric ton (2,205 pounds) of CO2 look like?
Imagine a house - single level 2,400 square feet with average ceiling height 13 feet. Fill it with dirty air and you have roughly a metric ton of CO2.
How does Offset Alliance choose carbon offset projects?
Projects only meet protocol standards when they are:
Additional - meaning not “business as usual”. Carbon offsets can not be generated from things that would otherwise have still happened. Example: a forest is already protected from timber activity and can not be deforested. However if the forest is NOT protected, a project can be developed as part of changing the forest to protected status.
Verifiable - meaning the project was approved, is performing in-line with protocol and is verified by one or more qualified third-parties before any carbon offsets are issued.
After meeting these criteria, Offset Alliance then assesses one or both of the following:
Social impact - is the project helping the local community environmentally, economically or culturally.
Biodiversity - is the project helping native flora and fauna to thrive and/or regenerate.
Do I need to offset my carbon emissions with a project close to me?
Local climate action is always a plus. The reality is that it doesn't matter where your carbon emissions are offset. Because of our planet's wind currents and climate system, emitting greenhouse gases has a global impact, and removing greenhouse gases does too. Most important is making sure that a carbon offset project is independently verified, and follows a protocol from one of the world's leading authorities like Climate Action Reserve, Gold Standard, Verra and American Carbon Registry.
What is “radiative forcing”? I have seen it applied to flight CO2 emissions.
When flying at altitude, planes emit planet warming pollutants beyond CO2 - such as water vapor, aerosols and nitrogen oxides. According to a special report by the IPCC, this results in aviation having an overall climate impact two to four times higher than from CO2 emissions alone. Learn more here
What does “vintage” mean with verified carbon offsets?
Verified carbon offsets are issued by the carbon registry which the carbon offset project is associated - after completing rigorous third-party verification of performing in accordance with the published protocol it is developed under. For example, a reforestation project starts “operations” Jan 1, 2019 and is then verified in early 2021. The credits issued for this project will have a vintage of 2019 and 2020, the years in which the emissions reductions were verified to have occurred.