Acciones de compensación

Carbon offsets offer the ability to counteract emissions by financing carbon removal or reduction projects

Whatever the industry, almost all organisations – large and small – release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as part of their operations. These gases contribute to climate change, which wreaks avoc in nature, affect people’s lives and livelihoods, and add costs to business and governments. As part of their sustainability strategies, many organisations support certified climate projects to compensate for their unavoidable emissions. Broadly speaking, these projects can tackle global emissions in three ways: by removing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere; avoiding its release in the first place; or capturing and using greenhouse gases such as methane.

No todas estas acciones son iguales ...

La efectividad de los proyectos depende ....

Jerarquia de reducción...

Greenhouse gas emission reductions means the quantified decrease in greenhouse gas emissions related to/arising from an activity between two points in time. In the context of carbon credits, greenhouse gas emission reductions are quantified relative to a valid baseline scenario.

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) refers to anthropogenic activities removing CO2 from the atmosphere and permanently storing it in geological, terrestrial, or ocean reservoirs, or in products. It includes existing and potential anthropogenic enhancement of biological or geochemical sinks and direct air capture and storage, but excludes natural CO2 uptake not directly caused by human activities. Greenhouse gas removal refers to anthropogenic activities removing other greenhouse gases than CO2 from the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a broad term comprising human-initiated activities to directly remove and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It excludes ongoing natural processes already acting as sinks of CO2. We distinguish between two categories of CDR: engineered CDR such as DACCS and BECCS (defined below) and nature- based solutions such as improved soil and forest management. The term CDR is sometimes used interchangeably with negative emissions technologies (NETs).

In simple terms, carbon offsetting is the practice of compensating for your organisation’s emissions by buying carbon credits.

Protecting a stock of carbon or other substance whose destruction would generate greenhouse gas emissions is sometimes referred to as emission avoidance.

Carbon offsetting has sometimes been challenged by critics who say it allows a business to continue emitting while simply paying for its emissions, and that this is an example of “greenwashing”. The risk, they say, is that an organisation sees carbon offsetting as a quick way to mitigate an increase in emissions and continue with ‘business as usual’, without actually changing its business model to reduce emissions. Moreover, environmental NGOs have expressed concern that organisations may simply be able to “buy their way” to net-zero without minimising their carbon footprint.

However, a credible carbon offsetting partner will understand that offsetting is just one part of an organisation’s journey to achieve net-zero emissions, and will advise it on the multiple strategies it should execute to decarbonise its operations. In this regard, it is also important to note that an organisation cannot make a ‘net- zero’ claim by only compensating for its footprint alone – as stated by the IPCC, organisations must show that they have set ambitious carbon reduction targets across the entire value chain.

Also, as noted previously, as carbon prices rise, offsetting will become less attractive to an organisation’s management as they see the cost of emissions rising. Typically, an organisation that is offsetting its emissions will also be working to lower its operational emissions voluntary offsetting schemes and identify key challenges to scaling them up while ensuring credibility. The body, which is set to launch later this year, will champion a set of ‘Core Carbon Principles’. The hope is that these Principles can then be embedded into legal standards by nations and through international agreements.

Look at the bigger picture A simple but important question for any organisation looking at the carbon offsetting route: Where and how does this fit into your wider climate and environmental strategy?

As companies and governments begin to look further into the future, however, the limitations of nature- based CDR become more pressing. Microsoft, for example, has publicly stated that its CDR portfolio is actively assessed by four criteria: (1) scalability, (2) affordability, (3) commercial availability, and (4) verifiability. Nature-based CDR techniques are cheap and available in the near term but are difficult to verify, suffer from permanence issues, are becoming more expensive over time, and have limits to how much they can scale.

Permanence is a metric that characterizes the CO2 storage durability over a long timescale. CDR techniques such as afforestation and soil management have low permanence values because the mechanism by which their carbon is sequestered can be easily reversed by disturbances like forest fires or soil erosion. More permanent techniques such as mineralization react CO2 into a rock form, where it is far harder to disturb and release.

Additionally, serious concerns are raised about the potential environmental and social impacts (e.g., biodiversity degradation, infringing on Indigenous land rights) that nature-based CDR could inflict if scaled rapidly and without careful planning and consultation of all stakeholders. As a result, Microsoft has said that it will pursue nature-based CDR in the near term with the goal of shifting to more scalable, permanent, engineered-based solutions as they become more viable. Similarly motivated actors are likely to follow suit.

There are several potential benefits of carbon offsetting, including (but not limited to):

Even with transformative progress in policy, social systems, and technologies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5°C will be difficult. As climate action and the climate crisis evolve, we need to understand the full landscape of options so that we can make the most prudent and least costly decisions. CDR must not be seen as a magic bullet to solve our climate crisis, but such solutions could provide a critically important insurance policy for removing excess emissions later.

A major component of 1.5°C alignment is the carbon budget, the cumulative carbon dioxide we can release from 2020 onward while staying within a long-term temperature goal. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others put this budget at around 500 Gt CO2 for a 50% chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century.i For the past decade, the world has emitted on average 38.8±2.9 Gt CO2 per year, a rate that is quickly consuming the 1.5°C carbon budget. To stay within the budget, we need to cut CO2 emissions roughly in half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. Even if we hit these milestones, we may still need to remove emissions by deploying CDR solutions to make up for other greenhouse gas emissions and uncertainties.

The majority of 1.5°C-aligned IAM scenarios require 5–20 Gt CO2/y of gross carbon dioxide removals. Deployable CDR potential is small in the near term but grows to a cumulative potential of more than 20 Gt CO2/y in 2050 in our projections. Even a 5 Gt/y CO2 removal capacity by 2050 will likely require a portfolio approach because it is unlikely that a single technology could supply that much capacity alone, according to our estimates.

Carbon offsetting allows organisations to take climate action today to protect the environment and support communities around the world, while working to lower their own emissions as part of their emissions reduction strategies. Also, carbon offsetting adds a real cost to the operations of an organisation – this is usually referred to as an internal price on carbon – which encourages the organisation to lower its emissions over time, thus avoiding this offsetting cost.

There are numerous national and regional voluntary carbon offsetting programmes available globally, which allow organisations to invest in an array of projects that reduce emissions to compensate for some or all of their own emissions. These programmes are all based on the same principles: delivering a positive planetary impact that is measurable and certified, with each credit only able to be used once.

One carbon credit is equal to one tonne of carbon dioxide being reduced or removed from the atmosphere. An organisation can purchase carbon credits from certified projects which reduce or remove the same amount of carbon dioxide (or other greenhouse gas) that the organisation emits, allowing it to claim carbon neutrality.

El concepto de Net Zero es una versión mucho más ambiciosa y exigente que el de Carbono Neutral.

Diferencias	Carbono neutral	Net Zero
Limites	Requiere cubrir los Alcances 1 y 2, mientras que el 3 es sugerido	Requiere cubrir los Alcances 1 y 2 y también el Alcance 3
Velocidad	No exige reducir las emisiones a un mínimo de velocidad	Exige reducir las emisiones en línea con una trayectoria que evite superar 1.5C
Emisiones residuales	Acepta la compensación a través de reducciones de emisiones (en otras empresas), mayores eficiencias o captura	Sólo se aceptan proyectos de captura o remoción de carbono por un máximo del 10 %

Aside from allowing an organisation to mitigate its unavoidable emissions – and therefore helping to reach its sustainability targets – one of the key benefits of carbon offsetting is that it allows organisations to financially support the urgent climate action needed today to keep global warming to safe levels. Offsetting projects often have difficulty in getting loans or guarantees in their local financial markets, so selling carbon credits can create a stable revenue stream which can help to get the project off the ground – and can even help with the securing of bank loans. It is also worth noting that carbon markets are currently the only results-based mechanism to channel funding into climate action and the local communities which the offsetting projects serve.

Los proyectos de captura de carbono no solamente ayudan a mitigar el Cambio Climático. También pueden tener grandes impactos positivos sobre el desarrollo comunitario o la conservación de los ecosistemas.

As people become increasingly aware of the importance of reducing emissions and saving the planet from irreversible climate change, they are increasingly keen to do business with or buy from responsible organisations. What used to be a ‘nice-to-have’ is fast becoming a ‘must-have’ for many consumers, and this same principle applies to other key stakeholders. Indeed, a 2019 study carried out by Oxford University revealed that more than 80% of mainstream investors now consider Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) information when making investment decisions.

First and foremost, it is important to note that carbon offsetting should be executed alongside an ambitious decarbonisation strategy. Given the urgency and public pressure to keep global warming at safe levels, organisations should look to act today. An organisation should compensate for its current emissions while also taking actions to reduce emissions – by implementing on-site renewable energy, energy efficiency technology and encouraging behaviour change, for example. In the voluntary carbon market, there are a range of options available when it comes to offsetting emissions depending on an organisation’s goals and budget. Examples of such options include:

For ambitious organisations, or those with net-zero carbon targets, it is prudent to start adding some carbon removal (or net-negative emission) projects into their carbon offsetting portfolio. To achieve net-zero under the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), carbon removals credits can be used by organisations to neutralise any unavoidable emissions after stringent decarbonisation efforts have been carried out on Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.

Technological carbon removals projects are based on technologies which essentially ‘hoover up’ carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the air. However, current solutions are expensive and have not reached the scale needed, and the development of lower-cost carbon removal technologies is still in the early stages. Further research and corporate investment is needed to provide the required financing to scale up such projects and bring down costs. The terms CDR and NETs are increasingly used in academic and technical literature as well as public media coverage. We distinguish between key terms as follows:

typically refers to the capture of CO directly from an industrial point-source waste stream such as a fossil fuel power plant. Point-source CCS merely avoids emissions; it does not reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Therefore, it is a mitigation strategy, not a carbon removal strategy.

refers to the use of biomass for energy production with point- source CCS. Depending on the associated life-cycle emissions (e.g., carbon sequestered in the biomass less emissions from production and transport), BECCS can result in either carbon dioxide removal or carbon-neutral energy production.

is an engineered CDR, using industrial-scale chemical processes to extract CO2 from ambient air before permanently storing it in underground geological formations. Also known as direct air capture and storage (DACS).

A process that removes CO2 from ambient air and concentrates it for storage deep underground or use in a wide variety of products.

Geological Storage: the injection of CO2 into a geologic formation deep underground for essentially permanent timescales. This activity is not considered a CDR approach by itself, but rather, is a way of safely storing carbon removed from the atmosphere through DAC and BECCS. Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS)

Biomass feedstock is converted to electricity, hydrogen, heat, and/or liquid fuels. The process simultaneously separates and stores some portion of the carbon dioxide which is released in the process in deep geological formations below the earth's surface.

is the process of using captured carbon dioxide (from any source) in products or services such as synthetic fuels or fibers. It only counts as CDR when the carbon is stored for long periods of time (referred to as carbon capture, utilization, and storage [CCUS]); otherwise it is referred to as carbon recycling.

The best insurance policy is the one that leverages proven, low-cost, and rapidly scalable alternatives to fossil fuel use in the form of efficiency, demand flexibility, and inexpensive renewable energy.

The use of land or altered agricultural practices to increase the soil organic carbon (SOC). The carbon storage is highly sensitive to policy changes and thus reversible.

Biochar is produced when biomass is thermally converted in an oxygen-depleted atmosphere. This process is called pyrolysis and takes place at temperatures up to around 800° C. During this process three products are generated in different ratios depending on process design: a carbon-rich solid i.e. biochar, a gas (syngas) and a liquid (bio-oil). Biochar can then be used to enrich agricultural lands and consequently fixing carbon by keeping a large portion of the carbon in soil for hundreds of years preventing the return of biotic carbon to the atmosphere via decomposition and, therefore, serving as a carbon sink.

Mineralization, enhanced weathering, biochar, and macroalgae are all examples of CDR techniques that better meet more stringent offset requirements. Macroalgae and biochar sequester carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, but unlike other nature-based CDR solutions, they secure that carbon in a more permanent way. Macroalgae involves growing large volumes of algae biomass and then storing that biomass deep in the ocean. Biochar is produced by combusting biomass in a low-oxygen environment (i.e., pyrolysis) to produce inert stable carbon that can be stored in soil or durable products.

Mineralization, either on land through enhanced weathering or in the oceans through ocean liming, works by reacting CO2 with minerals to form stable carbonates. This process occurs naturally on Earth at a modest rate of only about 300 Mt CO2/y but has enormous scaling potential, at least theoretically. Near-surface formations such as those being used by CarbFix at the Climeworks Orca facility in Iceland have an estimated capacity of 100,000 Gt CO2, while seafloor aquifers have an additional estimated potential to store 60 million gigatons of CO2 . This all sounds promising from a theoretical perspective, but these CDR techniques would require the mining, crushing, and distribution of massive volumes of rock with as yet unknown consequences that are likely to limit deployment in practice.

The CDR techniques with the fewest geospatial constraints, highest permanence, and greatest long-term potential are the technology-based solutions such as BECCS and DACCS. While both enjoy the advantage of permanent long-term storage, DACCS is less limited by biophysical and geospatial systems.v For this reason, it has generated great interest among climate philanthropists, policymakers, and investors. Future operating costs for DACCS are difficult to estimate because the emerging technologies in this space are so new. No single DAC technology has yet established itself as the market leader. The technologies receiving the most attention today are those based on high-temperature liquid-base systems and low- temperature solid-amine processes, but neither has achieved significant operational scale. In the future, new alternative technologies such as membrane separations could be developed. In our median estimate, DACCS could supply as much as 3.1 Gt CO2/y of removals by 2050. See Exhibit 6 for the entailed annual growth required to achieve such capacity.

CO2 mineralization processes by which certain minerals react and form a bond with CO2, removing it from the atmosphere and resulting in inert (stable) carbonate rock. Ocean Fertilisation

Ocean fertilization enhances biological production, and thereby carbon uptake, deliberately adding essential nutrients to the upper waters where these are in short supply. One proposed approach builds on fertilization with the macronutrients nitrogen and phosphorus, another involves addition of iron to the open ocean.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) – such as forest protection and restoration– can cost- effectively provide over a third of the climate change mitigation needed between now and 2030 to stabilise warming to below 2C. Investing in a relatively cheap NBS that can mitigate more than 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions can be something of a ‘no- brainer’ for organisations.

In the near term, nature-based CDR solutions, such as improved management of soil and forests optimized for increased organic carbon stocks, provide most of the CDR potential. These approaches are well established and relatively low cost, mainly relying on adoption of best management practices (e.g., cover crop and no till, or longer forestry rotation cycles) already proven to be increasing in popularity among agriculture and forestry stakeholders. As such, they could be scaled rapidly in the near term when accompanied by the right set of economic incentives and political interventions. Our models project these solutions to be cheaper and to have greater potential than most other CDR solutions in the years leading to 2030.

The core concept of forest protection is simple: forests – both the trees themselves and the soil – are an important ‘carbon sink’, or storage place for carbon. In fact, the world’s forests contain more carbon than exploitable oil, gas, and coal deposits. So, by preventing deforestation, carbon can be kept from being released into the atmosphere. When an organisation purchases carbon credits, the money can go towards activities that tackle the local drivers of deforestation. This could include training to implement sustainable agricultural practices or to prevent wildfires; creating forest-friendly jobs, or even building a biodigester at a hospital so that it doesn’t have to rely on wood to boil water and sterilise equipment. It is worth noting that forest protection projects bring dozens of co-benefits beyond carbon to local communities, such as improved health, biodiversity and alternative sources of income. Organisations choose to support forest protection projects when they want to ensure high-impact and proudly promote engaging stories about their climate action.

Restoring forests or planting new ones is hugely important in driving down global emissions. As trees grow, they sequester – or absorb – carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Creating or restoring forest ecosystems can bring many benefits, such as increasing biodiversity and habitat connectivity, or supporting the local economy through a sustainable industry – like tourism – and job creation. These projects remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and generate carbon credits, and organisations can support them as part of their net- zero strategy.

Involves growing new forests in places where they did not exist before (afforestation) or restoring forests in areas where they used to grow (reforestation). Other land management practices designed to increase the quantity of carbon stored in forests, or other ecosystems such as wetlands, relative to baseline conditions (e.g., by modifying harvest schedules) may also be considered. The carbon storage is highly sensitive to policy changes and thus reversible. So-called "coastal blue carbon involves increasing carbon in standing biomass and, in particular, in soils in mangroves, tidal marshes, seagrass meadows, and other coastal habitats.

While there is no single definition for the term, sustainable agriculture generally refers to agriculture that focuses on building healthy, carbon- rich soils by improving biodiversity and maximising sequestration, so that farms are capable of producing high-quality, nutrient-dense food – all while having a net-positive Photo courtesy of South Pole. effect on the environment. For example, stopping the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, or maximising soil coverage through living roots and mulching.

Community-based projects can include initiatives such as replacing open stone fires with more efficient cookstoves. Community projects avoid emissions from being released into the atmosphere by empowering people, often in developing countries, to access low-carbon technologies that also have enormous social benefits. For example, switching from open fires to cookstoves frees up time for women and children; lowers the incidence of respiratory illness, and promotes education for girls as they spend less time foraging for firewood and cooking. Companies with a strong B2C focus may find that these projects resonate strongly with their customers.

Organisations can offset their emissions by supporting renewable energy projects like solar, wind and hydro projects. Often, such projects are located in developing countries where resources to move away from fossil fuels are limited. By supporting clean energy projects, organisations are making a big impact and helping the global transition to a low-carbon energy system. And crucially, renewable energy projects provide training and job opportunities to locals, ensuring no one is left behind.

Some of the most important projects to combat global warming in the short-term are those which capture methane. This greenhouse gas is significantly more potent than CO2 in trapping heat, and is estimated to be responsible for around 25% of global warming. Through carbon offsetting, organisations can support methane-capture projects by, for example, installing circular capture systems at landfills or wastewater treatment plants. The captured methane can be used to generate electricity in a way which replaces fossil-fuel derived energy, for example.

Carbon offsetting for the private sector has been around for decades. However, with the recent surge in climate change awareness, offsetting has experienced a significant increase in uptake – the latest figures from 2020 show that the value of the carbon offsetting market is five times greater than in 2017. This rising demand is pushing up the price of carbon credits, which means organisations are going to have to pay a higher price to compensate for their emissions. As mentioned previously, this internal cost of operational emissions will incentivise organisations to identify emission hotspots and reduce their carbon footprint wherever possible.

El primer paso para cualquier organización que quiera compensar sus emisiones es calcular su huella de carbono y determinar qué medidas se están tomando, y deberían tomarse, para reducir las emisiones. Como ya se ha dicho, la compensación sólo debe utilizarse como parte de una estrategia ambiciosa de descarbonización. Existe una gran cantidad de calculadoras de carbono en línea y consultores especializados que pueden ayudar a una organización a calcular su huella de carbono. El Protocolo de Gases de Efecto Invernadero, ampliamente utilizado, clasifica las emisiones directas e indirectas de la siguiente manera:

• Alcance 1: Emisiones directas de fuentes propias o controladas, como la combustión de gas para calefacción o la gasolina de la flota de una organización, por ejemplo.
• Alcance 2: Emisiones indirectas, procedentes de la generación de energía comprada.
• Alcance 3: Todas las emisiones indirectas no incluidas en el Alcance 2 que se producen en la cadena de valor de la organización informante, incluidas las emisiones anteriores y posteriores. Esto incluye los viajes de negocios, los desplazamientos al trabajo, el uso de productos por parte de los clientes y las emisiones de la cadena de suministro.

Recuerde siempre su estrategia de descarbonización más amplia Una empresa debería preguntarse siempre si tiene una estrategia ambiciosa de reducción de emisiones antes de compensar sus emisiones actuales. ¿Es imprescindible viajar para esa reunión de negocios, o podría realizarse por videoconferencia? ¿Pueden cambiarse las fuentes de energía por renovables? ¿Se puede cambiar la flota a vehículos eléctricos? Este es el tipo de cuestiones que deberían estudiarse a fondo como parte de su estrategia climática.

La mayoría de las organizaciones se concentran actualmente en reducir sus emisiones de Alcance 1 y 2 como parte de sus compromisos de carbono neto cero. Sin embargo, para llegar realmente a cero emisiones netas, una empresa debe reducir las emisiones de carbono en los tres alcances, por lo que cada vez son más las organizaciones que colaboran más estrechamente con sus proveedores para minimizar sus emisiones de alcance 3. Mientras una organización reduce sus propias emisiones en la medida de lo posible y anima a su cadena de suministro a hacer lo mismo, puede que le queden algunas emisiones "inevitables", que deberían compensarse mediante la compensación de carbono.

Una organización debería comenzar su viaje de compensación de carbono eligiendo a una organización asociada con la que trabajar; una rápida búsqueda en Google arroja muchos ejemplos de tales socios. Pero es aquí donde una organización debe proceder con cautela: la elección de un socio de compensación no debe ser una decisión basada únicamente en el coste. Un socio de compensación debe ser una organización transparente y creíble, con un sólido historial. A este respecto, se recomienda que las organizaciones se remitan a la Alianza Internacional para la Reducción y Compensación de las Emisiones de Carbono (ICROA), una ONG que rige las mejores prácticas en el sector de la compensación de emisiones de carbono. También se recomienda que las organizaciones sólo apoyen proyectos certificados por la ICROA o por normas de compensación reconocidas internacionalmente, como el Gold Standard y el Verified Carbon Standard (VCS).

Una vez elegido un socio de compensación creíble, el proceso a partir de este punto debería ser relativamente sencillo, dependiendo de la cantidad de datos disponibles para medir y verificar la huella de carbono de la organización. En algunos casos, la compensación puede comenzar oficialmente en cuestión de semanas tras acordar una asociación. El precio pagado por tonelada de carbono se acuerda en función de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero de la organización. A continuación, se puede redactar un contrato en el que se especifiquen los proyectos de carbono que el cliente desea apoyar mediante la compra de créditos de carbono, el volumen de créditos de carbono adquiridos y cualquier otro servicio necesario, como la medición y verificación de la contabilidad de gases de efecto invernadero de la organización.

Una vez adquiridos los créditos de carbono, se "retiran" y la organización puede comunicar de forma creíble su acción climática a las partes interesadas internas y externas. La organización recibirá un certificado como prueba. La organización asociada proporcionará actualizaciones periódicas sobre el progreso del proyecto. Por ejemplo, si una organización apoya un proyecto de plantación de árboles, el socio compensador volverá periódicamente al lugar después de plantar los árboles para inspeccionarlo y comprobar que esos árboles crecen al ritmo acordado y eliminan así la cantidad acordada de dióxido de carbono de la atmósfera. El socio realizará entonces los ajustes necesarios y podrá volver a informar -cada 10 años, por ejemplo- mientras dure el acuerdo de compensación de carbono.

El coste de los créditos de carbono y, por tanto, de la compensación, puede variar enormemente, y definir un coste exacto depende de varios factores. Por supuesto, la cantidad de carbono que se compensa desempeña un papel, pero ¿qué determina el coste real de los créditos de carbono?

Entre los factores que influyen en el precio de los créditos de carbono figuran:

• Los cobeneficios sociales de un proyecto, es decir, el valor adicional que aporta más allá del carbono. Por ejemplo, algunos proyectos se centran en la creación de empleo, la reducción del riesgo para la salud, la limpieza del agua o tienen otras repercusiones positivas en la vida de las personas.
• Costes tecnológicos y de implantación variables: dependen del tamaño, la ubicación y los requisitos del proyecto. Plantar árboles es más barato que poner en marcha un proyecto eólico o solar; por ejemplo, algunos proyectos se centran en la creación de empleo, la reducción del riesgo para la salud, la limpieza del agua u otros efectos positivos en la vida de las personas.
• Normativa sobre el precio del carbono - La normativa estipulada a través del Régimen Comunitario de Comercio de Derechos de Emisión o un equivalente nacional, por ejemplo, puede afectar a los precios en los mercados voluntarios de carbono.
• Fluctuaciones de la oferta y la demanda Actualmente, el precio de un crédito de carbono puede oscilar entre 5 y 150 euros por tonelada, dependiendo de los factores anteriores.

En todo el mundo, los compromisos corporativos de reducción a cero han impulsado un crecimiento récord en el volumen de compensaciones de carbono adquiridas en los últimos años. Según el Informe sobre el Estado de los Mercados Voluntarios de Carbono 2021 de Forest Trends, el volumen de créditos voluntarios de carbono comercializados representó reducciones de emisiones equivalentes a más de 188MtCO2e en 2020, un aumento del 80% con respecto a 2019, lo que es especialmente destacable si se tiene en cuenta que 2020 fue un año de perturbación mundial causada por la pandemia de Covid-19. Este crecimiento ha continuado este año: a 31 de agosto de 2021, el volumen de compensaciones de carbono en el mercado voluntario había alcanzado el equivalente a 239MtCO2e - un aumento del 27% respecto a la cifra de 2020. A medida que el mundo se despierta ante la emergencia climática y las empresas tratan de seguir liderando la respuesta de emergencia, la compensación de carbono se convertirá en una vía cada vez más importante y eficaz para mitigar las emisiones inevitables y satisfacer tanto a los consumidores concienciados con el medio ambiente como a los inversores. El crecimiento de la compensación del carbono como herramienta para alcanzar el objetivo de cero emisiones netas es, por tanto, una tendencia que parece que va a continuar.