As the planet warms—and another year of record-breaking heat puts climate promises under a microscope—some of us still pay to offset a flight’s emissions. We support companies like Microsoft, Patagonia, and IKEA which claim—or aim—to be carbon neutral. Even celebs like Gwyneth Paltrow and Taylor Swift offset their oversized impact from private jets and Gatsby-esque lifestyles.
Awash in scandal over the past two years, the voluntary carbon offset market crashed hard after study after study and journalistic expose after expose found projects funded by Disney, Chevron, and more failed to help climate as claimed.
If even billion-dollar companies struggle to assess whether a credit delivers what it promises, what chance do the rest of us have? Is this deliberate greenwashing—or genuine responsibility-taking? Can carbon offsets actually help?
Carbon Credits, Emissions, and Offsets, Oh My!
Cindy Yeilding, former BP America Senior VP, simplified things. Picture Lady Justice’s scales: “Carbon neutrality is a state of balance between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions—generated through burning fuel, industrial activities, or farming—and capturing, avoiding, or offsetting these emissions.” (Net zero goes a step further, when companies pledge to eliminate emissions.)
Wait, what exactly are we emitting, and should we be concerned?
In the cycle of life, animals exhale CO2 which plants exchange for oxygen. But then humans mucked things up. “The science is pretty definitive: The significant increase in greenhouse gases over the past few centuries directly correlates to human activities,” said Yeilding.
These gases create a massive greenhouse by “trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere,” explained Yeilding. This has pushed global temperatures to dangerous new territory: 2024 was the first calendar year to average more than 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, while 2025 remained exceptionally hot at about 1.44°C above the 1850–1900 average. “Extreme weather, melting glaciers, warming oceans, and resultant sea level rise are often linked to this rapid increase in temperature.”
Despite complicated chemistry, the end result is simple: We’re heating Earth faster than we can compensate.
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Taking Responsibility
A decade ago, I was that person; calculating my carbon footprint and paying to offset it. I had the luggage tags to prove it. It worked like this: If I calculated 16 tons CO2 yearly—average for Americans—I’d buy 16 credits.
I didn’t do this from guilt but duty; I believed that offsetting also supported the development of an innovative planet-saving industry.
Individuals actually comprise a fraction of this market. It’s mostly companies and carbon cowboys that buy and sell credits, even speculating on carbon futures. One can also invest in carbon ETFs (like mutual funds). Some do it for conscience or PR value; others, for profit.
A Woman Invented Carbon Offsets
At its core, offsetting is genius—and invented by a woman. In 1987, an energy company CEO tasked Sheryl Sturges with reducing their impact on global warming. Trees absorb CO2 as they grow, so after developing the idea, they planted 52 million trees to offset 40 years of emissions.
Time Magazine’s 1988 story, “Antidote For A Smokestack,” kickstarted the industry. Offsetting projects sprouted like mushrooms after rain—removing methane from landfills, installing energy-efficient cookstoves, capturing carbon from air.
Many projects involved protecting forests, but those proved to be especially prone to problems.
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“Who doesn’t love a tree?” posited Yeilding. “However, nature-based solutions like trees only offer a partial solution to tackling excess atmospheric CO2.” If trees burn, are logged, or die from drought or disease, the carbon you thought you offset gets released.
A New Yorker exposé uncovered an “elaborate fraud” within the Zimbabwean Kariba project, where millions were made selling vastly overvalued carbon credits. Climate consultancy South Pole paid locals to save forests, selling credits to Disney, Gucci, Nestlé, Porsche, and others. (Related: When Your Colleague Isn’t a Friend. She’s a Frenemy.)
Verra, the nonprofit “certifying” the credits, “only learned [details] upon publication of the article.” Yet a separate nine-month investigation found more than 90 percent of all Verra’s rainforest projects didn’t offset carbon as claimed. They remain in business.
Shocked by this and other revelations of scandal and incompetence, consumer companies retreated. That option to offset your flight? United pulled it. Apple’s “carbon neutral” Apple Watch claims have faced legal challenges, underscoring how closely companies’ offset-based marketing is now being scrutinized. The market plummeted.
A Few Bad Apples or a Barrelful?
Experts remain divided on whether offsets are valid tools or piles of horse pucky. A recent review concluded that the market’s failures are from “systematic, deep-seated problems.” Federica Dossi, expert at Carbon Market Watch agreed, “You’re trying to find the good apples in a basket full of bad” while Eron Bloomgarden, founder of Emergent, insisted most projects remain legit and the industry can recover with transparency and investment.
High Tide Foundation’s Alexia Kelly, in a Harvard Business School podcast, called the voluntary offset industry an “artisanal baby market,” less than 1 percent of the $100 billion “compliance markets” (for example, California’s Cap-and-Trade and the EU’s Emissions Trading System). Even if projects aren’t perfect, she added, she’s “never seen a better system for getting money to the Global South and to frontline communities and ecosystems.”
Companies Need to Buck Up
“I used to be the person clicking to give that 50 extra cents [on trains],” said Dossi, but no more. “It is incredible to me that these [corporations] blame the consumer instead of changing how they do things. If solving the climate crisis was as easy as paying 50 extra cents, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Offsetting should be the very last thing you do,” added Bloomgarden, whether you’re an individual or a corporation. In the climate world’s so-called mitigation hierarchy, reducing and avoiding emissions come first.
Instead, “Take a train when you would have taken a flight,” said Dossi; Reduce fuel, avoid single-use plastics, eat less meat. Another option? “Give money to a local group of activists—or join yourself.”
Did Companies Greenwash Us?
One thing that seems clear: Companies that bought offsets deemed “worthless” were trying to do right. Compared to the 1990s, the fact that so many corporations voluntarily try to reduce their footprints is astonishing—and hopeful. And it’s telling that even in the face of geopolitical pushback against climate action, most companies are greenhushing—continuing sustainability commitments, but more quietly.
Should we hold companies accountable? Absolutely. Celebrities? Not so much.
“IMO, Taylor Swift can do whatever she wants,” said Yeilding. While estimated emissions from her Eras Tour in 2024 are 31 times the average American, it’s less than 0.002 percent of Apple’s 22.6 million tons. In my opinion, focusing climate criticism on one badass woman is a red herring detracting from where it should be.
So, I’ve come full circle. I learned my offsets from TerraPass weren’t as great as promised—I would’ve made a stronger impact buying a hybrid car. But I’ll still watch where this industry heads as it recovers, with a critical but hopeful eye.
SIDEBAR
Interested in offsetting, or supporting companies that do? Do your homework—and treat offsets as a supplement to reducing emissions, not a substitute for it. Kelly recommended companies that buy credits from the compliance markets and resell them privately, such as Climate Vault. Studies show fuel-efficient cookstoves can be strong options, ideally certified by Gold Standard. Make sure any forestry projects don’t displace Indigenous tribes or violate human rights.
High-quality offsets share these traits:
Permanence means your CO2 stays removed 100 years; 1,000 is better. This is harder with forests, prone to wildfires and pests. Other options include diamonds (yes, please!), nanotubes, and carbon-storing cement.
Additionality means the offset carbon wouldn’t have been saved anyway. When saving forests, can you be sure it wouldn’t have remained without the project? Long story short: Additionality is easier with methane capture, energy efficiency, and renewable energy projects.
Accuracy reflects clarity of the calculations of tons of carbon absorbed for whatever offset technique you used. This is more challenging with nature.
Exclusivity means that companies count each ton of CO2 once. Individual consumers can’t easily ascertain this, but it’s essential in the carbon-offset math.
Wendee Nicole is an award-winning San Diego writer who has written about nature, sustainability, and health since 1996. Her work has been published in Discover, Scientific American, Ensia, and many other publications. She’s been a contributing writer for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences publication Environmental Health Perspectives.
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