Reducing Impact > Offsetting
Full Footprint and most of the calculators we link to emphasize what's important - we need to learn about our impacts and do whatever we can to increase our positive impacts and decrease our negative impacts on the environment.
However, there reaches a point where one can't reduce anymore on an individual level. That's where offsetting offers an imperfect but viable solution to support activities which otherwise wouldn't exist in decreasing our negative impacts.
There is an understandable amount of misunderstanding and philosophical differences surrounding offsetting.
This page includes information for you to make your own decisions, Full Footprint fully discloses that after a fair amount of research and soul searching we support offsets when reductions are not yet viable, provided they follow best practices including additionality, third party verification, creating social opportunities, and are not carried out in such a way that disrespects or negatively impacts indigenous people and their lands. The options page presents some offset options we have found that seem to be of high quality.
Either way it's important to keep talking about these issues and remain respectful to everyone who is working to make our imperfect world better in many different ways.
Note that most of these articles focus on carbon offsets as they are the most common, but "offsetting" can be applied to any environmental impact, there are water, land, and other offsets available.
However, there reaches a point where one can't reduce anymore on an individual level. That's where offsetting offers an imperfect but viable solution to support activities which otherwise wouldn't exist in decreasing our negative impacts.
There is an understandable amount of misunderstanding and philosophical differences surrounding offsetting.
- Some of this is because when the concept was created, many of the offsets available were from sketchy sources. This can be mitigated with high quality offsets with third party verification.
- Philosophically, many find it disempowering that we commodify our negative actions and pay to make them "go away". But this is only a small part of the story. Offsetting creates opportunities which otherwise would not exist by supporting new renewable energy, water efficiency projects, and habitat restoration.
- Others believe offsets creates transparency issues as they are difficult to understand and track - but so is our environmental impact in general. Valid third party verification helps, and we can all make these issues a regular part of our education so they aren't quite as baffling.
This page includes information for you to make your own decisions, Full Footprint fully discloses that after a fair amount of research and soul searching we support offsets when reductions are not yet viable, provided they follow best practices including additionality, third party verification, creating social opportunities, and are not carried out in such a way that disrespects or negatively impacts indigenous people and their lands. The options page presents some offset options we have found that seem to be of high quality.
Either way it's important to keep talking about these issues and remain respectful to everyone who is working to make our imperfect world better in many different ways.
Note that most of these articles focus on carbon offsets as they are the most common, but "offsetting" can be applied to any environmental impact, there are water, land, and other offsets available.
The Guardian's Guide to (Carbon) OffsettingA well-written article which explores common issues regarding offsetting and experts' views on both sides of the topic.
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David Suzuki's GuideWhile written in 2009, this hefty resource for individuals and businesses still provides a thorough background on types of offsets and third party verification.
Historical Note: The guide originally included a ranking of different offset companies, which David Suzuki Foundation later removed because they found it too difficult to stay on top of which companies were doing what and didn't want to be seen as endorsing particular organizations. We do have a copy of this list, which we used for our initial research, if you are interested we can provide! |
zerofootprintThis company has several interesting food for thought articles on offsetting at the bottom of its publication page, such as:
• Everything you wanted to know about carbon offsets but were afraid to ask - easy to read guide including common misconceptions and responses (some ideas Full Footprint is more on board with than others!) • So you think you don't offset - interesting comparison of offsetting to recycling household waste |
What else?Share articles on this subject and we will post them here.
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