Last week, the Albanese government announced that it would wind up Australia’s government-run carbon offsetting scheme, Climate Active. The message to companies is now clear: offsetting is not a viable path to decarbonisation and meaningful measures to reduce emissions must be prioritised.
Climate Active served as Australia’s largest ‘carbon neutral’ certification scheme, covering hundreds of major corporate brands, events and products. But in recent years, Climate Active came under mounting criticism as the environmental benefits of carbon offsetting came into question.
It has become evident that most of the carbon credits used to substantiate ‘carbon neutral’ certifications under Climate Active are essentially junk. This led to accusations that the scheme had become one big, government-endorsed, greenwashing exercise.
Almost three years after the Albanese government announced an intention to overhaul the scheme, it ultimately concluded that the time had come to bring Climate Active to an end.
The program had already been dying a slow death for many years. More than a hundred companies had withdrawn from the scheme after it became increasingly evident that participation in the scheme was more of a reputational risk than a benefit.
