Carbon credits are a mechanism that allows companies to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by supporting projects that reduce or remove carbon. These projects involve land management practices that sequester carbon, making them critical in achieving climate goals set by the Paris Agreement. Moreover, carbon credits can meet many of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which comprise a roadmap to ensure sustainable social, environmental, and economic progress worldwide. Co-benefits also refer to the SDGs, which are beyond-carbon impacts delivered by a project and reflected in the final price of carbon credits. For instance, community-based clean cookstoves projects and water borehole projects deliver SDGs, including gender equality, good health and well-being, affordable and clean energy, and climate action, alongside carbon reduction outcomes. Climate change mitigation and co-benefits can go hand in hand if considered from the early stages of a project, and careful integration of SDGs into a carbon credit project’s blueprint can ensure their successful delivery. Therefore, carbon credits that support a number of SDGs that align with corporate sustainability deliver great benefits. Each SDG has its targets to achieve, but it can also tackle other sustainable development issues. Furthermore, every climate action can deliver impacts that flow to more than just one SDG, and meeting other sustainable development goals are also eligible for producing different co-benefits, resulting in premium values. Successful carbon offset projects require cooperation among private sector, governments, and nonprofits to achieve desired development goals, according to the United Nations SDG 17.
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It is important that carbon credit schemes also benefit local communities.
The World Meteorological Organisation has stated that 193 countries have given unanimous backing to a scheme to monitor global greenhouse...
