The Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) refers to the direction of financial resources towards practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The VCM was created to fight climate change and has evolved over time and is now considered to be a reliable method to achieve this reduction. The VCM has gone through a noticeable growth during the past few years, not only in the volume of carbon credits, but also in the attention it has been receiving from interested parties (e.g. investors and project developers) who seek to remain in alignment with climate commitments. Further growth is expected to be seen in the volume of VCM credits in the next few years. VCM grants companies the ability to reach major climate objectives through purchasing carbon offsets, which helps make up for their emissions. It is believed that the amount of emissions saved through VCM by 2019 exceeds 608 million tons, which equates to taking more than 130 million cars off the street for one year. The main greenhouse gas emission caused by human activities is carbon dioxide (CO2), constituting approximately 80% of greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans. The usage of fossil fuels for energy is one of the leading sources of CO2 emissions caused by human activity. Transportation, electricity, and the industry are also high emitters of CO2, all of which contributes in damaging the environment.
The importance of carbon offset projects
Through carbon offset projects, people and corporates are given the opportunity to balance or “wipe out” their carbon footprint by investing in projects, which typically contribute to least developed countries in Africa and South America. These projects tend to reduce future emissions, either through clean energy resources or by forest conservation. Another example would be planting trees to soak the CO2. This can be done to neutralize a person’s/company’s whole footprint, or only the footprint of a particular event (e.g. a flight).
Want to be carbon neutral? Invest in or co-invest one of our carbon reduction projects! Aither provides projects registered by international issuing bodies which go in alignment with various Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Such projects include:
Efficient cookstoves:providing improved cookstoves that consume noticeably less energy for cooking and heating than traditional stoves which reduce harmful smokes.
Water purifiers: in certain developing countries, water is contaminated and is boiled by the locals to purify it. Providing more eco-friendly water purification methods will save plants by saving firewood, consequently preventing the release of carbon emissions.
Mangroves: they help in reducing the effect of natural disasters, like costal erosion, saving the energy required to recover the damages. Most importantly, Mangroves store an incredible amount of carbon, reducing the environmental damage caused by CO2.
We encourage you to get in touch with us and we, at Aither, ensure accessibility to a global network with high quality and internationally verified carbon credits.