Compensate, a fast-growing company in the voluntary carbon offset market that has reached a new milestone. They have received $2 485 368 or €2 031 310 euros in compensation payments from clients. That is enough to buy 440 273 carbon credits that remove 136 027 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.
The company was founded 2 years ago and is headquartered in Helsinki. It offers a service called Compensate Plus aimed for small businesses and freelancers to become carbon negative.
It also provides a platform – Carbon Store with easy access to carbon offsetting and carbon footprint calculations. According to the company, its mobile app has grown from a Finnish beta version to one that covers the whole of Europe.
That shows how eager people are to offset carbon emissions and take responsibility for our planet. The company issued a white paper – an in-depth report on the voluntary carbon market and its carbon offset programs evaluation criteria.
“People are starting to wake up to the fact that we need to take drastic and immediate action, but if the market is flawed, it can do more harm than good to the climate. That’s why we exist. We want to challenge the existing standards and acknowledge the flaws, so that we can fix them together”, said Niklas Kaskeala, Chief Impact Officer of Compensate.
Carbon Offset Projects
The company aims to define principles in the carbon offset projects criteria to ensure the long-term sustainability of the market. If the offsets are unreliable in their promise to take CO2 out of the atmosphere, the market risks causing more harm than providing a solution.
Its own standard on project criteria raises the bar on sustainability as it looks for the most efficient carbon projects in the market. The company’s project portfolio consists of 80% traditional projects and 20% innovative methods such as soil carbon, blue carbon (carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems), and biochar.
“These modern methods are not yet the most cost-effective, but we feel that it is our responsibility to support the development of the market by investing in them. The more ways to capture carbon there are, the more we can remove from the atmosphere,” explains Kajosaari.
Compensate addresses the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, allowing everybody the purchasing of carbon offsets. As the voluntary carbon offset market is growing exponentially, the company is given the opportunity to reach even bigger goals and sequester enough CO2 to help the world achieve the Paris Agreement targets.
