Ensuring Credibility in the Fight Against Climate Change
Strategic and significant action is required to reduce carbon emissions – ‘You. Smart. Thing.’ (YST) travel demand management technology is designed to support emissions reduction by changing audience and visitor travel behaviour. High-quality carbon credits can support ongoing emissions reductions for those unavoidable emissions or emissions outside of an organisation’s direct control. Organisations can choose to invest in carbon credits (also known as carbon offsets) to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) or physically remove GHGs from the atmosphere.
Not all credits are created equally – verification is needed
Verification is when carbon credits are assessed to ensure claimed environmental benefits are real, measurable, additional, and adhere to established standards.
Verification is critical, not only to ensure the credibility of voluntary carbon offset projects, but also to avoid greenwashing, the circulation of ‘phantom credits’ (credits that do not represent genuine carbon reductions), and the acceleration of carbon emissions. In 2023, The Guardian exposed the failure of verified carbon offset projects. An investigation revealed that, ‘more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest certifier [Verra] are worthless.’
So, why bother with carbon offsets? According to Dr Sadia Ahmed and Ramon Bravo Gonzalez at Deloitte, when invested in properly, carbon offsets have ‘immense potential to drive climate action and facilitate the transition towards a net-zero future’. Alongside policy and regulation, businesses must ensure they select meaningful carbon offsets.
‘You. Smart. Thing.’ supports emissions reduction and the verified removal of unavoidable emissions
The YST platform promotes the lowest-emission travel option to eventgoers, nudging behaviour change and reducing GHG emissions
YST travel assistant service informs visitors of the CO2e generated by each journey option to communicate across the environmental impact of travel and encourage sustainable travel decisions. YST has partnered with leading climate action organisations to address residual/unavoidable GHG emissions generated by visitor travel to live events and festivals. Technical integration with partners CUR8 and ecolibrium allows visitors to make a conscious decision to reduce travel emissions and facilitates investment into verified decarbonisation and sustainable development projects.
Unavoidable emissions can be removed through our partner CUR8
YST works with CUR8, a platform dedicated to building the global market for carbon removals. CUR8 has established a detailed due diligence framework to assess the feasibility and integrity of carbon removal suppliers and their projects to ensure quality and credibility.
YST offers the option for visitors to remove their emissions from travel through the platform, in collaboration with CUR8.
Case Study: CUR8’s first-ever fully carbon removed gig
CUR8 encourage clients to reduce emissions before turning to removals. This can be seen in their collaboration with A Greener Future (AGF) and The O2 to deliver the first fully carbon removed gig – The 1975 in February 2024. Sam Booth, Sustainability Director and Events Specialist at AEG Europe, explained the process of accounting for all emissions and making reductions where possible.
The main carbon sources include The O2 operations (gas, heating, and electricity use), catering, beverages, band activity, and audience travel. To address these emissions sources, The O2 has replaced lightbulbs with LEDs across the arena and introduced an on-site wormery to manage food waste. For The 1975 gigs, the menu had less meat and dairy and was served on Earthshot-winning Notpla, fully biodegradable seaweed-based serve-ware with a 70% lower carbon footprint than alternatives.
Once reductions initiatives had been implemented CUR8 removed the residual 545.9 tonnes [of CO2e] across the four shows. Mark Stevenson, co-founder and chief impact officer at CUR8, said the pilot project had “demonstrated the art of the possible”.
‘Meaningful’ credits and researching the credits you plan to purchase
YST is working with organisations carbon credits to ensure they are verified, relevant and impactful, including ecolibrium. ecolibrium is the events industry’s response to the climate crisis – set up by organisations working at the forefront of the festival and events world. ecolibrium is focused on moving low carbon travel to the heart of live events culture and uniting events in environmental restoration. As a registered charity, ecolibrium collects and funnels donations into powerful sustainable development initiatives focused on ecosystem protection, regeneration, and clean energy generation. One sustainable development (SD) project they invest in is Temwa’s tree planting projects.
Temwa combats the effects of deforestation and climate change through tree planting and sustainable agriculture and agroforestry. Temwa goes beyond the natural environment and works to empower communities in line with local needs and expectations.
ecolibrium started working with Temwa in 2020. Before partnering with Temwa, ecolibrium carried out an internal due diligence process resulting in a comprehensive report on the organisation, including identifying ‘financial, ethical and political risks’. ecolibrium’s evaluation of Temwa’s environmental performance was used to ascertain the “benefits of the programme’s tree planting, forest management and sustainable farming initiative, for people and the planet.” (Naomi Lawson, Project Manager at ecolibrium)
“For us, due diligence is an important step when putting partnerships in place. We review a comprehensive set of criteria, such as project location, Theory of Change, performance goals and targets, company ethics, and project risks. Our aim is to ensure the ethics and values of our partners are in line with our own and that our donations have the greatest positive impact on people and the planet.” (Naomi Lawson, Project Manager at ecolibrium)
Temwa is one part of ecolibrium’s Tree+ program. In the past, ecolibrium has also directed donations towards projects verified by the Woodland Carbon Code and REDD+.
In Summary…
- Carbon credits should only be used when emissions are unavoidable, and all possible emissions reductions initiatives have been implemented.
- Credits are not made equally, and diligent research is needed to find appropriate credits that ensure impact and drive meaningful change.
- Verified credits ensures legitimacy and adherence to established standards.
- The YST platform helps reduce emissions through behaviour change, and can measure and connect visitors with carbon offsets for the remaining emissions.
- YST has partnered with both ecolibrium and CUR8 to add another layer of confidence in carbon offsets, both having established due diligence processes.
- Overall, greater transparency and accountability are essential in the pursuit of a greener, more sustainable world.
