What does carbon offsetting mean in business?

With the energy transition underway and government and company-specific targets in place to reduce emissions, each sector of the economy is looking for ways to contribute. While the pathway for some sectors is clearer, the time taken to transition can be a challenge. Transport is vital to the economy – it is how we move goods across the country and helps us get to work and go about our daily lives. But the transition to lower and zero emissions vehicles such as EVs can be a challenge as not every consumer or business has the means to swap out their vehicle or fleet. For the heavier transport sector, there isn’t a simple or immediate solution.

So what can be done in the short term while we wait for lower emissions vehicles to penetrate the market or for technology to mature? Carbon offsetting is one way that businesses can reduce their carbon footprint and make a positive impact on the environment.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, carbon offsetting allows a business (or individual) to compensate for the emissions they produce by purchasing carbon credits, utilising a variety of schemes that reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Typically, businesses use a carbon trader to invest in projects locally or around the world with initiatives such as planting trees or similar concepts that capture carbon, thus offsetting the emissions produced.

Viva Energy offers business customers the ability to offset their carbon emissions by purchasing carbon credits. Customers are able to tailor their carbon credits to suit specific company needs with the carbon-abatement projects taking many forms, from nature-based reforestation to renewable energy and waste-to-energy operations.

There are other ways to reduce carbon emissions in the transport sector by developing alternative fuels. Viva Energy has offered biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel blended fuels) to customers for more than a decade and is actively investigating and investing in other alternative fuels of the future such as renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel.

Biodiesel (which is a blend of bio and mineral diesel) can be a more environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuel, with Viva Energy blending biodiesel made from tallow with regular diesel to make blends from five to 20 percent. This is a practical way businesses and individuals can make an immediate impact on reducing their carbon footprint. Renewable diesel will, at some point in the future, be the next step toward a complete replacement for diesel.

Viva Energy is also part of a project that is arguably Australia’s most ambitious hydrogen mobility project - a New Energies Service Station in Geelong. With support of a $22.8 million grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) as part of their Advancing Renewables Program, this initiative demonstrates the critical role that hydrogen can play in de-carbonising hard-to-transition industries such as commercial road transport.

While carbon offsetting is effectively a short-term solution, playing a role while technology matures and reaches commercial scale and businesses move to reduce emissions in the long-term, for industries such as heavy transportation and aviation the process of cutting emissions will likely take decades, which is why carbon offsetting will be a part of the solution for the foreseeable future.

^Disclaimer

^{Viva Energy Australia Pty Ltd (“Viva Energy”) has compiled the above article for your general information and to use as a general reference. Whilst all reasonable care has been taken by Viva Energy in compiling this article, Viva Energy does not warrant or represent that the information in the article is free from errors or omissions or is suitable for your intended use.}