Front and center at COP26, carbon markets 2.0 seemed to be finally taking off. Net-zero corporate commitments are fueling demand as firms clamor to offset their hard-to-abate emissions with "high quality" carbon credits. As a result, carbon credit purchases have doubled over the past two years.

This new phase of carbon markets 2.0 is different in one key way — this time it’s clear that not all tons are equivalent when it comes to carbon offsets.

Consequently, corporations are coming under increasing scrutiny about the quality of the offsets they buy — and so are starting to pay up for high-quality offsets. While the average price of an offset is still incredibly low $3/ton, companies are showing willingness to pay upwards of $1,000/ton for extremely high-quality offsets.

My firm went carbon neutral earlier this year, starting with neutralizing all past emissions since our inception. We aimed to purchase high-quality offsets that had real climate impact, and do it in the open. That process was quite a journey — trying to figure out what to buy, how to buy it — and a few key lessons came through.

  1.  Quality is key (and extremely difficult to assess)
  2.  It’s tough to get your hands on high-quality tons
  3. Transparency matters 

Read the full article about carbon neutrality by Julia Reichelstein at GreenBiz.