The Australia Institute, one of the nation’s most prominent think tanks with a focus on public policy, has raised a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) over the government enabling greenwashing.
The complaint filed with the ACCC is geared at the federal government’s climate neutral certification scheme, known as Climate Active, which allows companies and organizations to claim carbon neutrality based on offsetting their CO2 emissions via the purchase of carbon credits.
The Australia Institute, along with others, say that many of the carbon credits that Australian businesses are buying are of low quality, which is considered greenwashing.
A number of investigations around the world, such as one of the latest conducted by The Guardian, have also come to show the same: the market is flooded with ‘junk’ carbon credits.
The accusation against the Australian government is that, through Climate Active, it has essentially been allowing businesses to label themselves as carbon neutral, as the initiative has not been checking the quality of the purchased carbon credits.
Read more: New Report Shows Intermediaries Are Profiteering From Carbon Markets
