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I have been reading about carbon offsetting and people or companies doing this by buying carbon credits. People give money to people to take care of natural asset (like Earth token and the Natural asset exchange

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  • Your question mentions 3 different concepts; carbon credits, carbon offsetting and the Natural Asset Exchange (which uses Earth tokens). From your question I get the feeling that you are primarily interested in NAE and why people would use that to buy carbon credits or do carbon offsetting? Is this assumption correct?
    – THelper
    Nov 10, 2019 at 7:53
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    From what I read on their website, the Natural Asset Exchange is a blockchain platform where people can buy products with Earth tokens that can have a positive impact, for example carbon credits, RECs and (renewable?) energy. However the website fails to explain me why blockchain is the best approach here. Blockchain is a very energy-intensive method to make it more transparent what you buy and from who. However people can still sell you rubbish. Since blockchain technology consumes so much energy I personally think this platform is counter-productive and just increases climate change.
    – THelper
    Nov 10, 2019 at 7:54
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    @THelper No activity on their twitter, website, youtube, or blog since January. I'm thinking it's dead.
    – LShaver
    Dec 10, 2019 at 22:21
  • @LShaver thank you for investigating. I'm tempted to close this question as unclear because the OP isn't responding to comments. But I'll wait until it has at least 2 close votes.
    – THelper
    Dec 11, 2019 at 7:12
  • It's a means for polluters to feel good when they don't want to change their equipment or practices but want to keep making money via their pollution emitting ways. Changing equipment to produce little, or if possible no pollution, is expensive. It's cheaper & easier to keep doing what they are doing & pay someone to keep some trees that are supposed to adsorb the CO2 emitted from their manufacturing plants.
    – Fred
    Dec 15, 2019 at 12:46

2 Answers 2

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I don't think "people " buy them . Corporations or companies buy them as required by law ( in USA). One instance is auto manufacturers : When the new automobile fleet average does not meet the EPA requirements . GM may purchase credits from Tesla ( Tesla has a bunch of credits because carbon used to generate electricity is not counted ) . This is done through exchanges. In this case GM must buy the amount of carbon credits to bring the weighted fleet average to within EPA rules.

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  • I have seen initiatives of private individuals buying CO2 credits with the intention of raising the price, not for compensating their own footprint. I was unable to (re-)find them though. There are also firms advocating buying credits as a way to make money (doing better than other investment funds).
    – user2451
    Dec 11, 2019 at 16:31
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I'm not an expert, but I was reading today about 1 project/company that funds it's carbon reduction projects by taking a fee, per tonne of carbon dioxide produced, from people who want to offset that production. Seemed like a good idea to me.

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    Welcome to Sustainable Living. Thank you for your answer, but do you have some more background on this that explains why people would do this? Perhaps a link to the article you read?
    – THelper
    Nov 10, 2019 at 7:20

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