Carbon Projects FAQs

In this blog we will answer some of our FAQs regarding the Treepoints’ Carbon Portfolio. 

The voluntary carbon market (VCM) is ever changing and therefore, we know that our partners will always have lots of questions. 

If your question isn’t answered here, then please feel free to reach out to [email protected].

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What carbon purchasing options does Treepoints offer?

Treepoints portfolio: 

Most of our partners chose to offset their carbon using our carbon portfolio. We encourage partners to buy from this portfolio as it means that you will be investing in several different projects. We post all of our purchases on our public ledger here. All are certified by Verra or Gold Standard. You can find out more about our most recent project purchases on our blog here.

The price for our portfolio is currently £10/tonne.

One off purchases: 

If our portfolio isn't for you, then we can help you to source different projects. This might be because you want to support a project in a part of the world where you operate, you are interested in a specific type of carbon project or there are specific Sustainable Development Goals that you would like to support.

We can help you to buy one project or build a bespoke portfolio. The price for this option can vary greatly depending on what you want.

We advise buying Verra/Gold Standard but are happy to look into other certification bodies.

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Can I say my company is carbon neutral?

Short answer, no. Simply buying carbon offsetting projects does not mean that your company can self certify as carbon neutral/net zero. There are certifying bodies that can help you achieve these certifications. The key steps to achieving this are measuring your impact, reducing it and committing to year on year reduction, reporting your progress and offsetting.

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What terminology can I use when purchasing offsets through Treepoints?

Basically, we don't want any of our partners to be engaging with green washing activities. We want you to be honest and accountable. It is important that you communicate the positive work that you are doing with us in the most transparent way possible.

Simply offsetting does not make you a 'green/sustainable' brand, if you are making no effort to change your initial business activities.

However, you are engaging with positive planet action and you should shout about it! Just make sure it's in the right way. 

As always, any questions, just ask! We want to give you as much information as we can on where your money is going. We can also reach out to our offsetting partners with any questions we can't answer!

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How do you choose your projects?

Again, due to the fluctuating nature of the carbon market our method for project selection is constantly changing to be in line with the latest research/science.

At the moment we base our selection on 3 pillars - Carbon, Physical Environment, Social Environment. 

Within these three pillars we have several risk factors and these are weighted based on if they will have a net negative impact if they are not mitigated or if they will have a net positive impact if they are mitigated. For example, within ‘Carbon’ we consider the risk of additionality. If the project is NOT additional then the project will not lead to the stated carbon being offset, thus a negative impact. However, we also consider policy with ‘Carbon’. This considers if the policy environment will undermine the project’s effectiveness. If this risk is mitigated then this can be seen as an extra benefit, therefore net positive impact. 

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The risk factors that we consider within each project as as follows:

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The supporting evidence for the projects are analysed to see if there is evidence of the risk factors being considered and mitigated. If yes, then the factor scores a ‘1’ and if not the score is ‘01. The factors are weighted in terms of impact and the scores added together to give an overall score. A project will not be considered at all if it scores a ‘0’ for a risk factor that could lead to a net negative impact. 

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This methodology is something that we have recently introduced to try and bring a quantitative nature into how we assess our project selection. We previously followed a similar methodology, however, the research was all qualitative. 

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