This definitely is an issue with the voluntary carbon offset market. To play devil’s advocate - for the time being, there is no one counting all the carbon in the world. We’re undercounting some and double counting others, so the math is questionable before we start adding in offsets. So if I have to make an argument to take a bit of heat off this issue, this will provide more funding for early ultra low carbon and carbon sequestering products during the early phase of their life. Hopefully this will get them off the ground and cost competitive during the start up phase, and when public literacy is high enough that we’re all calling out the claims, they can stand on their own as a cost neutral better option. From what I’ve seen, most companies selling low carbon alternatives that are sold as offsets as well will be transparent, but cagey about admitting what this does to the LCA. It’s dishonest, but it still is a lower carbon option, and those buying offsets probably wouldn’t be doing anything more to address their carbon emissions anyway until we have a legal, controlled cap and trade market.
The general mindset here at the office is that any claim relying on offsets isn’t a valid claim. And yet we still buy offsets to “mitigate” our firm’s operational emissions as a form of climate penance…